“Jamie, thy own father has forgotten thee in thy infancy, and me in my old age; but, Jamie, forget not thou thy father nor thy mother, for that thou knowest and feelest is the commandment of God.”
The broken-hearted boy could give no reply. He had gradually stolen closer and closer unto the old loving man, and now was lying, worn out with sorrow, drenched and dissolved in tears, in his grandfather’s bosom. His mother had sunk down on her knees and hid her face with her hands. “Oh! if my husband knew but of this—he would never, never desert his dying father!” and I now knew that the Elder was praying on his death-bed for a disobedient and wicked son.
At this affecting time the minister took the family Bible on his knees, and said, “Let us sing to the praise and glory of God, part of the fifteenth psalm;” and he read, with a tremulous and broken voice, those beautiful verses:—
“Within thy tabernacle, Lord,
Who shall abide with thee?
And in Thy high and holy hill
Who shall a dweller be?
The man that walketh uprightly,
And worketh righteousness,
And as he thinketh in his heart,