“They were a mean lot,” said Jack; “they might have kept him at home and taken care of him.” “Ah, my boy! that is much the way it is to-day in countries where Jesus Christ does not reign; still, we must not be too hard on these friends of his; they may have been miserably poor, and to carry the man to the gate and leave him there may have been the utmost that was in their power to give.” [Illustration: DOLEFUL JACK.—(_See “Jack’s Decision.”_)] “Then they ought to have taken him to the hospital.” “There was none, Jackie. No provision whatever was made in that country for the suffering poor; such things belong to Christianity. Well, ‘Who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked an alms.’ He liked the appearance of those ministers, I fancy. I suppose he said, ‘They look kind, and I shouldn’t wonder if they would give me quite a lift.’” “I should say they did,” chuckled Jack, who knew the outcome of the story. Reading in this way you can see how long it might take them to get through with even a short story; but Jack thought it a “tip-top” way to read. He sat lost in thought for some minutes after the lame man had gone leaping into the temple, then said, half-doubtfully, as though not sure whether it were just the proper thing to say: “Uncle Jack, wouldn’t it be a splendid thing if Peter were alive now, and should come home from church with the folks, and cure you so you could run all around?” Uncle Jack turned bright smiling eyes on his nephew. “You forget,” he said briskly; “it wasn’t Peter who did it; he was only the instrument. You might as well call the cup in which you take your beef tea the food, as to call Peter the physician in this case.” “Well, then,” said Jack, looking resolute, “I don’t understand why he doesn’t cure folks now—Jesus, I mean. People say he is here all the time, though we can’t see him, and that he is just the same as ever he was; why don’t he cure you, Uncle Jack, just as he cured the man at the temple gate?” “He has,” said Uncle Jack promptly; “He has performed a much greater cure for me than He did for the man at the gate.” And then Jack looked astounded. As though he did not know that his Uncle Jack had not taken a step in two years, and even the great surgeon from the city could not be sure if he ever would. The gay young uncle laughed over his astonishment, then said: “I see I shall have to tell you something, Jackie. Before I was hurt I was in a bad way—lame not only in my feet, but in my will power, which is much worse. I was making a headlong rush toward ruin, and when the accident happened which laid me flat on my back, I knew before many weeks that it was Jesus Christ trying to cure me.” Little Jack stared. “Couldn’t He have done it without that?” he asked.