"It's all up with me, Christie, boy; no home for me."
The barrel-organ was quite neglected by Treffy. Christie took it out in the daytime, but at night it stood against the wall untouched. Treffy could not bear to hear it now. Christie had begun to turn it one evening, but the first tune it had played was "Home, sweet Home," and Treffy had said bitterly,—
"Don't play that, Christie, boy; there's no 'Home, sweet home,' for me; I shall never have a home again, never again."
So Treffy had nothing to comfort him. Even his old organ seemed to have taken part against him; even his dear old organ, which he had loved so much, had helped to make him more miserable.
The doctor had looked into the attic again according to his promise, but he said there was nothing to be done for Treffy; it was only a question of time, no medicine could save his life.
It was a very terrible thing for old Treffy thus to be slipping away, each day the chain of his life becoming looser and looser, and he drawing nearer each day to—he knew not what.
Treffy and Christie were counting anxiously the days to Sunday, when they would hear about the second verse of the hymn. Perhaps after all there might be some hope, some way into the bright city, some entrance into "Home, sweet Home," through which even old Treffy's sin-stained soul might pass.
And at last Sunday came. It was a wet, rainy night, the wind was high and stormy, and the little congregation in the mission-room was smaller than usual. But there was an earnest purpose in the faces of many who came, and the clergyman, as he looked round at the little company when he gave out his text, felt that many of them had not come from mere curiosity, but from an honest desire to hear the Word of God. And he lifted up his heart in very earnest prayer, that to many in that room the Word which he was about to speak might be a lasting blessing.
The mission-room was very still when the minister gave out his text. Little Christie's eyes were fixed intently on him, and he listened eagerly for every word.
The text was this: "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin."