After devotions, Sing surprised them all by saying, "Me Clistian. Me go to mission in Chinatown, San Flancisco. Me say idols no good. Me play (pray) heap. Jeso he lub Sing. Me feel heap good."
They were overjoyed. Andy Malden shook hands heartily all around. Hans said, "In Vaterland, Hans was sehr goot; pray for Hans, he goot here."
That was the great love-feast at Pine Tree Ranch, which Tony loved to tell about as long as he lived.
The church was crowded that Sunday when Job and Andrew Malden drove up behind the team of grays, with a lunch tucked under the seat, so they could stay all day. It was Communion Sunday. The neat white cloth which covered the table in front of the pulpit told the story as they pushed their way in. The congregation was singing, "Safely through another week, God has brought us on our way," and Job thought it was a long, long week since he had sat in the old church and heard that hymn. How natural it looked! The bare white walls, with here and there a crack which had carved a not inartistic line up the sides. The stiff wooden pulpit, almost hid to-day under the June roses. The same preacher who had said that Christmas night, "Wilt thou be baptized in this faith?" The little organ in the corner. The old familiar faces looking up from the benches, and some new ones. There had been a revival that winter in the church, and now Job could see its results. The whole congregation was sprinkled with faces he used to see in the saloons and on the streets, but had never hoped to see in church. Aye, and there were some faces missing. Where was old Grandpa Reynolds, who at that long-ago camp-meeting sang "Palms of victory, crowns of glory I shall wear"? A strange feeling came over Job as he remembered that he had gone Home to wear the crown of a sainted life.
"Some of the host have crossed the flood,
And some are crossing over."
The choir was singing the words. Job thought again of the aged saint. He thought of Yankee Sam and that wild night when he died; of Tim, poor Irish Tim; and then of that sweet face in the plain wooden casket in the strange California city—his boyhood's idol—and the tears started to his eyes.
"Unto you therefore which believe, He is precious." That was the text. The preacher was beginning the sermon, and Job called back his thoughts and leaned forward to listen.
"I think the tears were streaming down Peter's face when he uttered these words. The memories of a lifetime crowded upon him. He was a young man back by the Lake of Gennesaret, and looked up to see Andrew's excited face and hear him say, 'Peter, brother, we have found the great man; we have found the Messiah.' He was by those same waters mending the nets, ready to push out for the day's toil, and lo! he heard a voice—oh, how wonderful it was!—there was authority in it, soul in it: 'Peter, come follow me,' and he dropped the nets, and went out to life's sea to fish for men. Ah, yes, I think as Peter wrote these words he remembered his solemn vows of loyalty, his ecstatic joy on the Mount of Transfiguration, and then, alas! his awful sin when he deserted Jesus in that dark terrible morning of the great trial. Oh, those bitter hours! Peter could not forget them."
Job trembled; he knew what the preacher meant, he knew how Peter felt.
"But," continued the speaker, "how sweet there came back to him the memory of another morning by the same Galilean waters, as he mused in the twilight, and heard the Savior call, not in anger but in love, 'Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?' And back again, there where he had first loved Him, Peter came to the old life of love and loyalty. Memories of Pentecost, memories of life's trials and joys, ever transformed by the spiritual presence of his Master, made Peter cry from the depths of his soul, 'Unto you therefore which believe, he is precious.'"