The boy’s voice sounded a little choked at the last, and he dropped his eyes lest the others should see the sudden tears welling up in them.
The captain laid a kind hand on the lad’s shoulder. “If our dear mother is awake now she is doubtless thinking lovingly of her youngest son and asking God to bless and keep him from all evil. You may hope to see her again in about two weeks, which will pass very quickly, and in the mean time let us think of all we can accomplish to give her pleasure on her return,” he said. “Shall we not, little brother?”
“Yes, oh, yes, sir!” replied Walter, looking up brightly into the pleasant face above him. “I mean to study hard and keep all your rules carefully, so that you can give her a good account of my conduct and recitations. Oh, there’s the sun just entirely up out of the water! What a grand sight it is!”
“One that I never weary of,” said Captain Raymond in a meditative tone and gazing eastward upon the newly risen luminary as he spoke. “It reminds me of Him who is called the Sun of righteousness, because He is the quickener, comforter, and illuminator of His people.”
“Papa, didn’t people in the Old Testament times worship the sun?” asked Lulu.
“Yes,” replied her father, “it is thought that the Moloch of the Ammonites, the Chemosh of the Moabites, and the Baal of the Phœnicians was the sun.”
“I remember that the Israelites also sometimes wandered away from the true God and worshipped Baal,” remarked Walter; “that Elijah the prophet slew of Baal’s prophets four hundred and fifty men; and that afterward Jehu filled a house with Baal’s prophets, priests, and worshippers and had them all put to death.”
“Yes,” the captain said, “that was in accordance with the command of God given in Deuteronomy, seventeenth chapter. I will read it to you,” he added, taking a small Bible from his pocket. Turning to the passage he read:
“If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee, man or woman that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God, in transgressing his covenant, and hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded, and it be told thee and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and behold it be true, and the thing certain that such abomination is wrought in Israel; then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones till they die.”
“That gives us some insight into God’s hatred of idolatry,” remarked the captain, closing the book.