“He has no faith in me. I have deceived him too often.”
“What ground of faith is there now?” asked Mr. Graham.
“This,” was the firm but hastily spoken answer. “Last night as I sat in the gloom of my dreary hovel, feeling so wretched that I wished I could die, a little child came in--a poor, motherless, homeless wanderer, almost a baby--and crept down to my heart, and he is lying there still, Mr. Graham, soft, and warm and precious, a sweet burden to bear. I bought him a supper and a breakfast of bread and milk with the money, I had saved for drink, and now, both for his sake and mine, I am out seeking for work. I have locked him in, so that no one can harm or carry him away while I earn enough to buy him his dinner, and maybe something better to wear, poor little homeless thing!”
There was a genuine earnestness and pathos about the man that could not be mistaken.
“I think,” said Mr. Graham, his voice not quite steady, “that God brought us together this morning. I know Mr. Paulding. Let us go first to the mission, and have some talk with him. You must have a bath and better, and cleaner clothes before you are in a condition to get employment.”
The bath and a suit of partly-worn but good clean clothes were supplied at the mission house.
“Now come with me, and I will find you something to do,” said the old friend.
“The little child--I told him I'd come back soon. He's locked up all alone, poor baby!”
“Oh, true, true!” answered Mr. Graham; “the baby must be looked after;” and he explained to the missionary.
“I will go round with you and get the child,” said Mr. Paulding. “My wife will take care of him while you are away with Mr. Graham.”
They found little Andy sitting patiently on the floor. He did not know the friend who had given him a home and food and loving words, and looked at him half scared and doubting. But his voice made the child spring to his feet with a bound, and flushed his thin-face with the joy of a glad recognition.
Mrs. Paulding received him with a true motherly kindness, and soon a bath and clean clothing wrought as great a change in the child as they had done in the man.
“I want your help in saving him,” said Mr. Graham, aside, to the missionary. “He was once among our most respectable citizens, a good church-member, a good husband and father, a man of ability and large influence. Society lost much when it lost him. He is well worth saving, and we must do it if possible. God sent him this little child to touch his heart and flood it with old memories, and then he led me to come down here that I might meet and help him just when his good purposes made help needful and salvation possible. It is all of his loving care and wise providence of his tender mercy, which is over the poorest and weakest and most degraded of his children. Will you give him your special care?”