“Well, I was reading of how He walked this earth, and how He went to visit a Pharisee, and yet received no welcome from him at the door. All this I read last night, my friend, and then fell to thinking about it—to thinking how some day I too might fail to pay Our Little Father Christ due honor. ‘Suppose,’ I thought to myself, ‘He came to me or to anyone like me? Should we, like the great lord Simon, not know how to receive Him and not go out to meet Him?’ Thus I thought, and fell asleep where I sat. Then as I sat sleeping there I heard someone call my name; and as I raised myself the voice went on (as though it were the voice of someone whispering in my ear): ‘Watch thou for me to-morrow, for I am coming to visit thee.’ It said that twice. And so those words have got into my head, and, foolish though I know it to be, I keep expecting _Him_—the Little Father—every moment.” Stepanitch nodded and said nothing, but emptied his glass and laid it aside. Nevertheless Avdeitch took and refilled it. “Drink it up; it will do you good,” he said. “Do you know,” he went on, “I often call to mind how when Our Little Father walked this earth, there was never a man, however humble, whom He despised, and how it was chiefly among the common people that He dwelt. It was always with _them_ that He walked; it was from among _them_—from among such men as you and I—from among sinners and working folk—that He chose His disciples. ‘Whosoever,’ He said, ‘shall exalt himself, the same shall be abased; and whosoever shall abase himself, the same shall be exalted.’ ‘You,’ He said again, ‘call me Lord; yet will I wash your feet.’ ‘Whosoever,’ He said, ‘would be chief among you, let him be the servant of all. Because,’ He said, ‘blessed are the lowly, the peacemakers, the merciful, and the charitable.’” Stepanitch had forgotten all about his tea. He was an old man, and his tears came easily. He sat and listened, with the tears rolling down his cheeks. “Oh, but you must drink your tea,” said Avdeitch; yet Stepanitch only crossed himself and said the thanksgiving, after which he pushed his glass away and rose. “I thank you, Martin Avdeitch,” he said. “You have taken me in, and fed both soul and body.” “Nay, but I beg of you to come again,” replied Avdeitch. “I am only too glad of a guest.” So Stepanitch departed, while Martin poured out the last of the tea and drank it. Then he cleaned the crockery, and sat down again to his work by the window—to the stitching of a back-piece. He stitched away, yet kept on looking through the window—looking for Christ, as it were—and ever thinking of Christ and His works. Indeed, Christ’s many sayings were never absent from Avdeitch’s mind. * * * * *