Who promised that?
How did the minister know how “heavy laden” was Jacob’s spirit?
How did he know that for sixty years he had been drawing water from broken cisterns? Chasing shadows even to the grave’s brink?
How did he know that on that balmy Sabbath morning, his heart was aching for something to lean on that would not pass away?
“Come unto me.”
Old Jacob took his staff, and tottered out into the little church-yard He did not know he was praying, when his soul cried out, “Lord help me;” but still his lips kept murmuring it, as he passed down the grassy road, and under the drooping lindens, for each time he said it, his heart seemed to grow lighter; each time it seemed easier for old Jacob to “come.” And so he entered his low doorway, and as he stooped to kiss his daughter’s cheek, the bitterness seemed to have gone from out his heart, and he felt that he could forgive even Percy, for His sake of whom he had just so recently craved forgiveness.
“What is it?” asked Lucy, awed by the strange expression of Jacob’s face, and laying her hand tenderly upon his arm; “what is it, Jacob?”
“Peace!” whispered the old man, reverently; “God’s peace—here Lucy;” and he laid his hand on his heart.
Lucy took old Jacob’s staff and set it in the corner. Good, kind Lucy! She did not think when she did so, that he would need it no more. She did not know when the sun went down that night, that death’s dark shadow fell across her cottage threshold. She did not know, poor Lucy, when she slumbered away the night hours so peacefully by his side, that, leaning on a surer Staff, old Jacob had passed triumphantly through the dark valley; and when at length the little twittering sparrows woke her with their morning song, and she looked into the old man’s cold, still face, the pale lips, though they moved not, seemed to whisper, “Peace, Lucy—God’s peace.”