So he opened his Bible and read to her the story of the crucifixion. It needed no comment or simpler rendering, for the story, as it ever does and ever will, made instant impress on the heart and mind of the listener. Did you ever try to imagine what the feelings of the apostles must have been when they wrote those four sublime gospels? What a work of intermingled joy and pain it must have been! “Now, Miss Lillie,” said Tom, when he had finished, “if you can read, I want you to go home and read this over for yourself, and then think whom you ought to love.” “What shall I do then?” asked the child, as if she already surmised the result of the reading. “Remember this one verse, and if I ever see you again, I shall ask you whether you have done as it commands: ‘If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.’” She repeated it two or three times after him, and then stood quietly until the sound of voices reached her; and then, with one quick glance in the direction from which they came, she sprang through the door, out across the yard toward the back of the house. Up through the front gate in the opposite direction came the great load, and Tom received the hay, standing in the upper loft of the barn. And so it was that, after thinking over the interview, and sorrowing that the religion he loved was to some hedged about with so many difficulties, when he gathered his class about him that night, and looked around upon them, feeling that he need not be afraid to speak for Jesus here, he felt most devoutly thankful in his heart for the liberty which is ours when Christ has made us free. The interest manifested by his pupils was wonderful. Old gray-headed men bent over their spelling-books and tried hard to decipher the words, looking up into the youthful face that watched them as to one above themselves, because to him had been granted a privilege which was not theirs. As the days advanced this did not lessen in the least; if anything, it seemed to increase. It was a beautiful thing to see, and to any one who felt an interest in the welfare of these neglected souls a peep into this tiny school-room was worth going far to see. Tom often wished Miss Mason could be there. He tried to say as little in his home letters about his own connection with it as he well could, but he knew not what a happy sense of duty done they contained in those days. His teacher used to read them over, and say it was sweet refreshment in her weary work--this boy’s good service for his Lord, and the utter simplicity and yet full gladness with which he wrote of it.