“If wee Davie could preach to us, I dare say, sir, that micht be his text.”
“Though dead, he yet speaks,” replied the Doctor.
Yes, the boy was yet a home missionary, drawing the hearts of that household to God.
The Doctor rose to depart. “By-the-bye,” he said, “let me repeat a verse or two to you, Thorburn, from a poem which I am sure you will like. It expresses the thoughts of a parent about his dead girl, and which have already in part been poorly expressed by me when your wife asked me if she would know her boy:—
‘She is not dead—the child of our affection,
But gone unto that school
Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
And Christ Himself doth rule.
‘In that great cloister’s stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,