"Ah, yes," was the reassuring answer, "in your devotion to husband and child, in your self-sacrifice, absolute and complete, you must have drawn nearer to God, whether you knew it or not."
Clarissa gave an indrawn sob. "You were always such a dear boy, Tom. You used to pick me up and console me when I fell, and the falls were so numerous—I was such a tom-boy—and now you are picking me up after a more serious stumble, and making me feel as if I shall walk again."
"I will run in the way of Thy commandments," said Tom, more to himself than to his sister. "I always think the man who wrote that led a very joyous sort of existence, a cheerful sort of fellow who had given up his whole life to God."
"You make religion seem so real, Tom. You always did."
There was a long pause, and the answer when it came was spoken from the depth of the man's heart.
"Surely—it's the one great reality; nothing else matters much."
The next day was Saturday, and directly breakfast was over Tom went down the township to find the little wooden fabric which represented the English church. He got the key from a house near by and let himself in by a door which had sunk on its hinges, and opened unwillingly. There was no sign of beauty in the barn-like building, and except that the altar was nicely cared for and had flowers upon it the whole place filled Tom with a sense of desolation. Truly church life in many of these places needed reformation. Small wonder that it took the heart out of many a man who began life filled with zeal and hopefulness to find himself with three or four scattered country parishes on his hands, with people kindly inclined and ever hospitable, but with narrow means, and whose church-life from want of fostering had become almost dead. To Tom Chance, fresh from the stirring life of a town parish at home, it seemed as if it needed a special outpouring of the Holy Ghost to set the thing in motion, and it was for that he prayed as he knelt for a few minutes on the altar-step. And then a step roused him, a child's step coming in at the door, and turning he saw his friend of yesterday, Jack Stephens, with his hands full of flowers, and a letter carried between his teeth. He laid down the flowers with due care, took the letter and turned it over lovingly in his hands.
"It's my very own," he said, smiling up at Tom, "I fetched it from the post office just now. I get one every week from father, and I have to answer it, but my letters are very short and his are very long."
"And the flowers," asked Tom.
"Oh, they are Aunt Betty's; I bring them down every Saturday, and she comes presently and puts them up there," pointing to the altar.