"Father," said Nelly, her own joyous expression returning, as she laid her little hand upon Viner's arm, and looked up full into his face, "will not you be a father to Walter? He shall be your son, and my brother too, and we shall all be so happy together!" Viner only replied by a smile, and the child continued—"Mr. Goldie said a word which I thought meant that, something about your ad—I cannot just remember the word." "Adopting, I suppose." "Yes, that was it exactly! I think," added Nelly, with a graver air, "that there is some word like that in the Bible." "There is, my Nelly, and a blessed word it is! All Christians are the adopted children of God; it is from His gracious adoption alone that we dare to address Him as 'Our Father, which art in heaven.'" "To adopt is to take some other person's child, and call it your own, and love it as your own, end feed it, and care for it, as you will for Walter. Am I not right?" said Nelly. "Quite right," replied Viner, stroking her fair hair. "And if God adopts us, He will love us, and watch over us, and take care of us as long as we live, and take us home to Himself when we die! But were we ever any one's children but God's?" "We were by nature, my Nelly, the children of wrath. Adam, our first father, had offended the Lord, and we are born into the world with a nature like his, bearing his sinful likeness, even as Walter Binning bears the name of his father. Man was not only a stranger to, but a rebel against God—he had no right to expect anything but punishment and pain from the hand of his offended Maker." "And yet the Lord adopted him, and made him His son!" "Yes, that mercy beyond all we could ask for or hope, was one of the blessings purchased for us by the death of the Saviour. It was as though the Lord Jesus had laid His pierced hand upon the sinner, and had led him to the feet of His Father, and that the Almighty, for the sake of his crucified Son, had deigned to receive the unworthy sinner, and make him His own child for ever!" "Then if we are God's children," exclaimed Nelly, "we must all be brothers and sisters to one another." "It is so," replied Viner earnestly, "though is our selfishness and pride we too often forget it. Those who love their Father in heaven will love His children on earth also, and form one blessed family of love." "I never thought before," said Nelly, thoughtfully, "when I repeated the Lord's Prayer, why I should say 'Our Father,' instead of 'My Father;' but now I will try to remember every time, that I am one of a great family of love!" Few more words passed between Viner and his daughter, until Nelly suddenly exclaimed, "Who is that stranger-boy coming this way with a bundle hanging by a stick over his shoulder, who looks up at the name over every shop, and seems so tired and sad? Father, do you think that this can be Walter?"