“‘Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’”
“I’ve heard it so often that I don’t feel it,” said Daniel. “I used to like to hear the minister say it, but now it goes in at one ear and out at the other. My heart is very hard, Jessica.”
By the feeble glimmer of the candle Daniel saw Jessica’s wistful eyes fixed upon him with a sad and loving glance; and then she lifted up her weak hand to her face, and laid it over her closed eyelids, and her feverish lips moved slowly.
“God,” she said, “please to make Mr. Daniel’s heart soft, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.”
She did not speak again, nor Daniel, for some time.
He took off his Sunday coat and laid it over the tiny, shivering frame, which was shaking with cold even in the summer evening; and as he did so he remembered the words which the Lord says he will pronounce at the last day of reckoning:
“Forasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
Daniel Standring felt his heart turning with love to the Saviour, and he bowed his head upon his hands, and cried, in the depths of his contrite spirit, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”