Softly and sweetly they sang, the old women swaying with the music:
“For, as the heaven in its height
The earth surmounteth far,
So great to those that do him fear,
His tender mercies are.”
When they reached that verse, the mother took up the song and went bravely on through the words of the following verse:
“As far as east is distant from
The west, so far hath he
From us removed, in his love,
All our iniquity.”
As she sang the last words her hand stole over to Bella, who sat beside her quiet but tearless, looking far away. But when the next words rose on the dear old minor strains,
“Such pity as a father hath
Unto his children dear,”
Bella's lip began to tremble, and two big tears ran down her pale cheeks, and one could see that the sore pain in her heart had been a little eased.
After Donald Ross had finished his part of the “exercises,” he called upon Kenny Crubach, who read briefly, and without comment, the exquisite Scottish paraphrase of Luther's “little gospel”:
“Behold the amazing gift of love
The Father hath bestowed
On us, the sinful sons of men,
To call us sons of God—”
and so on to the end.