"We feel very much obliged to you, Mr. Pickford. As you see, we are all enjoying ourselves; and I hope we shall live to meet again."
"I trust so, too. I never expected to see such a day as this; and I was thinking, when you were preaching in the barn, that when Zaccheus got up in the morning he little thought what would happen to him before night."
"And I was thinking, Sir," said Harry, "when you were preaching, that when Zaccheus got up in the sycamore tree he didn't think he should be converted before he got down."
"It was quick work," said the farmer; "done in no time."
"And I was thinking," said Mrs. Pickford, "that everybody must have felt surprised that Jesus Christ should notice such a notorious sinner as Zaccheus was, and should condescend to go and be a guest at his house."
"Nobody more so," said the farmer, "than Zaccheus himself. I know he felt just what I feel myself. Why, it is but t'other day, and I was a wicked, drunken, and swearing fellow, that thought no more about my soul than one of my cows; but now I hate such sins, and my main concarn is to get my soul saved. At times, I can hardly believe my own knowledge. What mighty power Jesus Christ has, to bring to, such wicked and hardened sinners as Zaccheus and myself!"
"And make you new creatures," Mr. Lewellin here remarked; "the old things of evil to pass away, and the new things of grace and religion to come, to reform your character and bless your house."
"That's it, and no sham," replied the farmer. "Parson Cole called t'other day to have a talk with me. He heard I was gone mad. I told him what Jesus Christ had done for my soul, and how happy I was, and what a change had come over my Harry and the rest of us. He called it all a lusion, or some such a word which I didn't understand; but I made out his meaning, and I told him it was a real thing. Poor fellow, he could not understand such things—more's the pity; and he said, by way of mock-making, 'Why, Jesus Christ appears to have a great liking for you great sinners.' This made a big stir within me, and I spoke my mind. 'Yes,' I said to him, 'he is the great and good Physician that comes to cure those that otherwise were incurable.' I said to him, 'Does not Paul tell us that he began by saving the chief of sinners? and I can say he has not left off doing it yet, as I hope he will save me.'"
"No one, I think," said Mr. Stevens, "can doubt the ability or willingness of Jesus Christ to save the chief of sinners, who reflects on what he has done. He saved Zaccheus, a hard-hearted extortioner, who had grown rich by deeds of fraud and oppression; and who was justly held in such detestation by the people, that they expressed a high degree of astonishment when they found that Jesus Christ was going to be his guest."
"His conversion and salvation makes good what I said to Parson Cole, that Jesus Christ cures the incurable. I was thinking, in the barn, just when the sarmunt was over, that if any of the people who knew Zaccheus had been asked if they thought it possible for any one to convert him into an honest and charitable man, they would all have said 'No, it can't be done; he is incurable.' But Jesus Christ did it in no time."