"But he rose again, and went back to heaven."
"They stole his body away," said David, "and made believe he was risen."
"O no, that was what the priests told the soldiers to say; but we know he rose again, David, for they saw him—the apostles and Mary Magdalene, and all of them; over and over again."
"But the Scriptures say he shall, I mean Messiah, he shall conquer the enemies of Israel and deliver us."
"I think that means the true Israel," said Matilda.
"The true Israel!" said David. "Who are the true Israel? I am one of them. Abraham's children."
The boy spoke proudly, defiantly, as if he felt the noble blood of kings and prophets in his veins, and the inheritance his own. Matilda found it very difficult to go on. So far she had been able to answer him, having given attention to her Sunday school teaching and that teaching having lately run in a course fitted to instruct her on some of the points that David started. But she did not know what to say now. She was silent.
"Look here," said David in the same tone. He seized his Bible which lay at hand, and turning over the leaves stopped at the prophecy of Daniel, and read, not after the common English version—
"'I was seeing in the visions of the night, and lo, with the clouds of the heavens as a son of man was one coming, and unto the Ancient of Days he hath come, and before him they have brought him near. And to him is given dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, and all peoples, nations and languages do serve him; his dominion is a dominion age-during, that passeth not away, and his kingdom that which is not destroyed.'" David read, and paused, and looked up at Matilda.
"Yes," said Matilda nodding; "that is just what the angel said about Jesus."