How joyfully those who had laughed Him to scorn when He contradicted their conventional assumption that death was the final ending—laughed, doubtless with the uncomfortable, mocking laughter of all materially minded people when confronted with things undreamed of in their smug philosophy—must have hurried to lay the table and prepare the meal, and perform all the trivial little duties which form the essence of the normal and the commonplace. How relieved they must have felt to find themselves once more in the ordinary routine of everyday existence!
And I like to think that it was then His turn to smile—He Who knew them so well, and remembered that they were but dust; yet the dust wherein He had clothed Himself in order to identify Himself with them. But I am sure that in His smile there was no scorn. He knew what they needed, and He supplied all their need.
Obedient to the Call which had come to me, I went through the village, hardly conscious of any volition on my own part. I had merged my will in another's, and had no longer any desire to act on my own initiative. It is a strange feeling, this absolute surrender of self, and brings with it that peace which the world can never give nor take away.
Still as in a dream I entered the cottage at the far end of the village, and found Mrs. Pearson rocking in her arms her dying child; the other children hanging round, all more or less in a state of tears.
"Good-morning, Mrs. Pearson," I said, when Maggie had ushered me into the midst of the weeping group. "I have come because you sent for me."
"And right thankful I am to you, Sir Reginald," replied the poor woman: "I says to myself, when the doctor give my baby up, 'If anybody can save her, Sir Reginald can.'"
"I will do what I can," I said, "but it is years now since I have had the power to heal anybody. I lost it when her ladyship went away."
"So I've heard, Sir Reginald. But I minded that story of the woman who wouldn't take 'No' even from the Blessed Lord Himself, but begged for just the crumbs under the table: and her child was healed in consequence."
I knelt down beside the rocking-chair, and laid my hands upon the little form lying on the mother's lap, at the same time lifting up my whole soul in prayer. And straightway the answer came—as in my heart of hearts I had known it would come. Like a mighty electrical force the healing power rushed through me to the child. I could feel it in every vein and every fibre of my body. And at the same time my consciousness of the Presence of Christ was so acute that it was almost as if I actually saw and heard and felt Him close beside me.
Whilst I prayed the moaning of the child ceased, and its laboured breathing grew gradually soft and easy: and when I rose from my knees and looked at it, I knew that it would live.