Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/264

  as she did once before from his Gaelic psalm book, without a word of comment. And then she began to tell him of all the hopes she had cherished in connection with the opening of the new church, and how that day she had felt at last the blessing had come.

"And, O, Mr. Macdonald," she said, "I was glad to hear you cry, for then I knew that the Spirit of God was among us."

"Glad!" said Macdonald Dubh, faintly.

"Yes, glad. For a cry like that never comes but when the Spirit of God moves in the heart of a man."

"Indeed, I will be thinking that He has cast me off forever," he said, wondering at this new phase of the subject.

"Then you must thank Him, Mr. Macdonald, that He has not so done; and the sure proof to you is that He has brought you to cry for mercy. That is a glad cry, in the ears of the Saviour. It is the cry of the sheep in the wilderness, that discovers him to the shepherd." And then, without argument, she took him into her confidence and poured out to him all her hopes and fears for the young people of the congregation, and especially for Ranald, till Macdonald Dubh partly forgot his own fears in hers. And then, just before it was time for Kirsty to arrive from the "Question Meeting," she took her Gaelic Bible and opened at the Lord's Prayer, as she had done once before.

"It is a terrible thing to be unforgiven, Mr. Macdonald," she said, "by man or by God. And God is unwilling that any of us should feel that pain, and that is why he is so free with his offer of pardon to