"Very cheering, too, to read such words as these. They're so straight. No going round about. No 'ifs' or 'buts' or 'maybe's,' but a plain 'it shall be given you.'"
Adam followed on and read the three next verses, ending with, "'If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?'"
Adam's fatherly tenderness helped him here, and he thought, "Yes, I would give any of my little 'uns the best bit I have, poor things! I wish I had more for them. Can it be that God feels like this to me? It says, He would 'much more' give this Holy Spirit, and He has given His only Son, and that with Him, He will freely give all the other things we want. If all this be true, I ought to be ashamed of myself, for it's plain God only wants to be asked."
It was many a year since Adam Livesey had bent a knee in reverence, or uttered a word in a spirit of prayer, and from a sense of want.
He did both now, amid a very conflict of varying feelings. Joy at the discovery of God's love in Christ Jesus, disgust at his own ingratitude, wonder that he could have been so utterly blind and indifferent to his Heavenly Father's dealings and gifts, sorrow for so many lost years—lost, because lived without God—and a longing after pardon, peace and guidance in the present and the future.
His prayer would have sounded strangely in human ears, but it went up to God from an honest and true heart, and not in vain. The Father's promise, given in the words of Jesus, was fulfilled, and the poor humble solitary man, "of no account" in his own eyes, did not ask or seek in vain when he poured out his supplications at the throne of grace.
Earth rejoiced not, knew nothing of the yearning soul or the cry that went up from it, but "there was joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repented."
There would have been joy beneath an earthly roof too, if its master and his guest could have known what was passing in Adam Livesey's mind.
Mr. Drummond and his friend, the preacher, had been glad to see Adam at the Mission Room that evening. Indeed, the striker had suggested both text and sermon, though he did not know it.
The manager having told Mr. Kennedy about his talk with Adam, the latter had seized on the man's oft-repeated expression, "I'm o' no account," and used it as has been already told, though not without praying that the man might be led to the place of meeting, and be benefited by it.