This remark, made in almost an under voice, was followed by silence for a few moments. The Doctor’s eyes were cast down as if in meditation or prayer.
“Death is hard enough!” said the smith.
“But hard chiefly as a sign of something worse,” continued the minister. “Pardon me for asking you such questions as these:—What if your child grew up an enemy to you? What if he never returned your love? What if he never would trust you? What if he never would speak to you? What if he always disobeyed you? Would this not bring down your gray hairs with sorrow to the grave?”
“Eh! sir,” said Jeanie, “that would be waur than death!”
“But excuse me, Doctor, for just remarking,” interrupted William, “that I never knew any child with a good parent who would so act. I really don’t think it possible that our ain wee Davie, even with our poor bringing up, would ever come to that. It would be so unnatural.”
“God knows, Thorburn,” said the Doctor. “There are many unnatural things in this world. Listen to me kindly; for I sincerely thank you for having allowed one who is a stranger to speak so frankly to you, and for having heard me with such considerate patience.”
“Oh, gang on, gang on, Doctor; I like to hear you,” said Jeanie.
“Certainly, sir,” added the smith.
“Well, then,” said the Doctor, “I have no wish to appear even to find fault with you at such a time. I feel more disposed to weep with you in your sorrow than to search your heart or life for sin. But I feel at such solemn times as these, solemn to you and to your wife, that the voice of a Father is speaking to you in the rod, and it ought to be heard; and that His hand is ministering discipline in time, and you ought to give Him reverence, and be in subjection to the Father of our spirits that you may live; and therefore, in order to impart to you more strength and comfort in the end, let me beseech of you, after I am gone, to consider candidly whether you have not perhaps been acting towards your Father in heaven in the very way in which did your child grow up and act towards you would be reckoned as worse than death. Therefore honestly ask yourselves whether there has been from you love to God your Father in return for His love to you. Has there been cordial friendship or the reverse? Confidence or distrust? Disobedience or rebellion? Communion in frank, believing, and affectionate prayer, or silence? I do not ask you to reply to me; but I wish you and myself, as loving fathers of our children, to ask whether we have felt and acted towards the best and most loving of fathers as we wish our children to feel and act towards ourselves.” The Doctor paused for a moment. Jeanie shook her head slowly, and the smith stared with her at the fire. “My friends, we have all sinned, and this is our sin of sins, that we have not known nor loved our Father, but have been forgetful of Him, strange, shy to Him; yes, we have been cold, heartless, prodigal, disobedient children.” Another short pause, and the Doctor then spoke on in the same quiet and loving voice—“But whatever we are or have been, let us hope in God, or we perish. Every sinner is doomed, but no man is doomed to be a sinner. God is our Father still; and just as you both have nourished and cherished your dear boy, and have been loving when he knew it not, nor could understand that great love in your hearts which, sure am I, will never grow cold but in the grave, so has it been with God to us His children. Open your hearts to His love, as you would open your eyes to the light which has been ever shining. Believe it as the grand reality, as you would have your boy open his heart to and believe in your love when he awakens from his sleep. Your love, as I have said, is deep, real to your boy, irrespective of his knowledge or return of it. But what is this to the love of God? ‘Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son to be a propitiation for our sins.’ Let us, my friends, never rest till we are enabled in some degree to see and to appreciate this, and to say, ‘We have known and believed the love which God has to us.’”
“Dr. M‘Gavin,” said William, “you have spoken to me as no man ever did before, and you will believe me, I am sure, when I say that I respect you and myself too much to flatter you. But there is surely a meaning in my love to that boy which I never saw before. It begins to glimmer on me.”