"Is He?" she answered softly. "Then don't you see that my father would take me home again as his child, if I could only repent, and give up my way to his! He is only set against me so long as I keep to my own way. It is so with God. "'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' "And oh! He is always ready to be reconciled to us; He cannot set Himself against any one of us. You have but to repent, and give up your own ways, and He will take you home again." "But I am taken out of my own ways," he groaned; "I have nothing now to give up." "Yet God knows if you truly repent of them," she urged. "He sees whether you are willing to give them up. If you can only believe in our Lord's words, even now! God is our Father, Christ tells us; and He is watching for us to go home." The old man's weary eyelids closed, and his lips moved in a whisper. Easter heard him repeating words to himself, which he had often uttered carelessly in his church; but now he seemed to speak them from his heart: "'I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.'" She bent her head down to his failing ear. "'But when he was yet a great way off,' she said, 'his Father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.'" "I don't know what will become of you and Chrissie when I'm gone," he said, after a while; "you'll have to leave your cottage. But never give up your trust in God, Easter. Hold fast to that." "Yes," she answered quietly. "I ought to have been a better man among my people," he continued; "they have been as sheep having no shepherd. God will forgive my sins; but oh, Easter, it is a bitter thing to die, and be called into His presence as an unprofitable servant, who can never hear Him say, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.' I have never done the Lord's work, and I cannot enter into the Lord's joy." "Blessed is he whose sins are forgiven," said Easter softly. "Ay! But more blessed still he who has worked for Him," he whispered. "I'm taking a lost and wasted life to lay before Him. Lord, have mercy upon me!" His voice had grown fainter and weaker; and now it failed him altogether. He lay all night, and till morning broke, in a stupor, while Easter watched beside him. Then he passed away into the unknown life, which he had wilfully forgotten until his last hour was come. CHAPTER V A Critical Moment