"Bud," she said, stopping at the bell-rope where he tolled the bell, "if you will let me take your Bible after church—did you bring it with you? Well, if you will let me take it, I will mark some verses in it that I think will help you. Did you read a verse each day?"
"Oh, yes'm," said Bud, and there was that in his voice which made her turn and look closely at him. "I read it, and I found out the way, and I went and spoke to Him, and He took me right in, as He said He would, and there's no comfort like it, I'm sure. I don't miss little Jack's mother any more."
What did all this mean? Bud began in the middle of things, according to his wont. He forgot that Miss Benedict had heard nothing about the promised comfort in Jerusalem, nor the difficulties he had had in being shown into the right way. Yet there is something in the family language, however awkwardly used, that conveys a meaning to those of the same household.
"Bud, do you really mean that you went to Jesus Christ, and he gave you comfort?"
"I do that, ma'am," said Bud, with hearty voice and shining eyes, and he gave the bell-rope a vigorous pull. "He was right by my side all the time, the minister said, when I bothered so about crossing the ocean, and there wasn't any ocean to cross; and I've got the comfort, and I'm going to hear the singing that you told about. I didn't think I ever could, but now I know the way."
Claire turned away silently, and walked softly into church, awed. Had poor Bud really met the Lord in the way? It looked so. She need have no more regrets over those unmarked verses. But how wonderful it was! And that is just the truth, dear, half-asleep Christian; wonders are taking place all about you, and it is possible that you are merely engaged in trying to prove to yourself and others that "the age of miracles is past;" though why you should be very anxious to prove it, does not clearly appear even to yourself.
The minister, who preached that morning, was the same minister who had stood behind that desk and read his sermons to that people for seven years, though some of his hearers rubbed their eyes, and looked about them in a dazed way, and wondered if this could be so. What had happened to the man? He had not a scrap of paper before him. In the estimation of some, he did not preach. Mrs. Graves, who read sermons aloud at home on Sabbath afternoons, and was inclined to be literary, said that it was not a sermon at all—that it was just a talk. But Deacon Graves, who was not literary, replied:
"Well, if he should take to talking very often, we should all have to wake up and look after our living, for it pretty nigh upset everything we have done this good while, and I must say it kind of made me feel as though I should like to see something stirring somewhere."
None of them knew about the minister's uplifting, only Bud, and Bud did not know that it was an uplifting, or that the minister cared, or that the sermon had anything to do with him, or, for that matter, that it was any different from usual. Bud knew he was different, and it gave him the most intense and exquisite joy to discover that he understood nearly every word that the minister said; but this he attributed not to a change in the sermon, but because he had fairly started on his journey to the heavenly Jerusalem. It is possible that some listeners need that sort of uplifting before the sermons to which they appear to listen will ever be other than idle words.