His grandchild, Amy, was with him one day, while he was examining the Blake mortgage and other papers. Looking up, he thought, “That child is like the Atlantic Ocean.” Like the Atlantic Ocean! She so little, and that so vast! It was an absurdity. And yet when one looked into her eyes, of such deep azure, when one witnessed the vivacity of her nature, the play of whose emotions was so varied, restless, and oftentimes intense, saw too the sparkles that kept coming and going in the depths of her eyes, one could but think of that Atlantic whose blue waves kept coming and going, each wave a crystal flashing in the sun.
Amy Elliott with a child’s keenness of observation was watching her grandfather as he handled a certain document that had been lying beside his Bible. It was prayer time with him, one of those seasons when he would try to climb the stairway of a new and holy life, and somehow would be baffled and turn back. While reading his Bible, he chanced to notice a sheet of paper near it, and his thoughts wandering off to it, he interrupted his Bible reading long enough to find out what it was that called off his attention. It was Boardman Blake’s note about the mortgage on his house, asking that a little indulgence be granted him. The sight of this irritated the old man, and he gave vent to his irritation in a sharp remark to Amy. “There, there, Amy, you interrupt me! You go and play somewhere.”
The child had not interrupted him, but that letter disturbed him, and it was convenient to blame Amy.
“Grandpa reading and praying?” inquired Amy. “That Grandpa’s prayer to God? Did God hear?” As she spoke, she laid her tapering little finger on Boardman’s letter. If she had struck him a cruel blow, she could not have wounded him more deeply. He clutched in his hand the letter, and muttering to himself, rose and went upstairs to a dark little closet where he would sometimes shut himself in and pray. Down he dropped upon his knees. “Grandpa’s prayer to God!” Supposing it had been his prayer to God, what would God have done with it? If it had been John Elliott crying to God for favor, what would God have done?
“He hasn’t answered me,” murmured the old man. And then the inquiry arose in his heart, why God had not answered him?
Somehow there came into his mind with strange swiftness those old words: “With what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again.”
Was not that letter the obstacle on the stairs of the better life he was trying to climb? Did he not stumble over it again and again? Would God extend mercy to him until he had had compassion on a fellow creature?
“I will!” he sobbed. “I will be merciful. I will extend the time for the payment of that note.”
And down into his soul as through some window opened just above him, streamed the light of the forgiving presence of God. No obstacle now on the stairway that John Elliott was trying to climb!
The first thing he did when he left that place of prayer, was to take pen and paper. At first he thought he would simply extend the time for the payment of that note.