And then his name and another line: “I will make up to you, dear father, for all you suffer now for me.”
“And He has kept him safe,” said the minister, “all these years.”
Katie came now and then, and looked in, but she did not speak, except once to say that grannie was sleeping still. Even Katie never knew how the minister and her grandfather passed the long morning. It was noon when she went in and told them that dinner was nearly ready, and that grannie was awake and asking for them. Afterward Mr Maxwell told Miss Elizabeth something about it.
How as it gradually became clear to the father that his dear son’s light had not gone out in darkness, but that he had repented of his sin, and confessed it, and had been as he trusted forgiven, his grief and shame and penitence were even deeper than his joy.
“To think that I should have been misdoubting the Lord all this time, as though He had broken His promise to me! And how patient He has been—long-suffering and full of compassion. I have been hard on Jacob Holt. If God had dealt with me as I have in my heart dealt with him!”
The minister did not always know whether he was speaking to him, or to himself. By and by, when he got calmer, and “better acquainted” with the thought of the new joy, he told the minister, in broken words, the story of his love for his son, and the bitterness of his loss, and his wonder and sympathy grew as he listened.
What depths of woe the old man had sounded! With what agonies of bitterness and anger which had grown to be hatred almost, as the years went on, had he struggled. And he had sometimes yielded to the misery of doubt of God’s care. He had thought the struggle vain.
He had never been quite at peace with himself through it all. God had never left him to an easy conscience, where Jacob Holt was concerned, even at his quietest time, and when things were at their best with him. He had never left him to himself, and now the evil spirit was cast out.
“The patience He has had with me. It is wonderful!” he said again and again. “And now I ask nothing but that He may do His will with me and mine,” he added, as Katie came in.
“I think grannie is no worse, though she is very weak and cannot bear much,” was Katie’s gentle caution, lest she should be excited overmuch.