We of course felt very anxious, remembering the precarious state in which we had left Captain Grey. The first person we saw as we drew near the hut was Robin, who had heard the sound of our sleigh-bells, and came rushing out to meet us.
“How is your father?” was the first question we asked.
“He is still very low,” answered Robin sadly; “but if he had a doctor who knew how to treat him, I think that he would soon get better.”
“The doctor is here,” I answered, pointing to Mr Crisp.
Robin grasped his hand, exclaiming, “Oh, do come and cure my father!”
“God only can cure the ailments of the body, as He does those of the soul, my boy. I may prove, I trust, a humble instrument in His hands; but I will exert all the skill I possess, and pray to Him for a blessing on it.”
We remained several days at the hut; and the good missionary ministered not only, as he had promised, to the physical ailments of the sufferer, but to his spiritual necessities likewise, pointing out to him the great truth that though the all-pure God hates the sin He loves the sinner, and would have all men, though by nature His enemies, reconciled to Him, according to His own appointed way, through simple faith in the all-perfect, all-sufficient atonement for sin which His dear Son Jesus Christ offered up on Calvary.
That truth, which I suspect had hitherto been rejected by Captain Grey, came home with force to his heart, and I heard him say as he took Mr Crisp’s hand, “I believe! I believe! and I pray that He will help my unbelief.”
In a week from the time of our arrival Captain Grey was sufficiently recovered to accompany us on our return to Fort Ross, where he was hospitably received by Mr Meredith, and carefully tended by Mrs Crisp, Rose, and Letty.
Robin won the affections of all our friends.