Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/13

Rh shore, or into the interior of the county, by some of its charming lanes. On one of these occasions, when, on a calm April evening, we rambled through a delightful valley, on the banks of a gushing stream, out upon the seashore, and had turned to go back home, he sank down upon a grassy bank, sighed deeply, and spoke thus:

'I shall soon be leaving you, Willie; my silver thread of life is nearly run out. God has been good to me, and merciful, although I have been self-exalted and forgetful of my duty to Him. I have often listened to the voice of the tempter, and given way to sinful passion, and I am glad to fee on the verge of release from all possibility of falling into those sins again. You will ask what there can be to tempt a man who is nearly a hundred years old. Nothing, certainly, if we are to judge by what is tangible and visible; but there may be a great deal within the soul; and within mine there has been a constant warfare with a mysterious and powerful being, who was pertinacious in his attacks, and unwearied in his efforts to undermine my allegiance to the great Author of my existence. At first he would insist that there was no God at all; we did not see or hear Him, and therefore He did not exist. Next, this evil being would try to persuade me that the Divinity of Jesus Christ, as the actual Son of God, in whom so many millions of people believe, is a mere delusion—an invention without a shadow of truth or probability in it. But I am weak; I cannot talk much now. . ..

'Every word,' he continued after a long pause, upon which I did not dare to intrude, 'must be to the purpose and well weighed. There are words which, if they could be weighed as we can weigh the bread we eat, would be worth their weight in refined gold. I have found those golden words in my Bible. Yes, blessed be God! I shall go soon, but not to the abyss of darkness where eternal wickedness