3

THE WAY HOME.

I.

Preparation for the Journey.

YE OUGHT TO SAY, IF THE LORD WILL, WE SHALL LIVE, AND DO THIS, OR THAT.

THE children were not told of their journey till ten days beforehand. You may believe how glad the prospect made them; for at Manchester there were many whom they loved, and it had been the home of little George for a whole year, while we were on the continent. Freddy was in his element. You will remember how delighted he used to be when preparing for a journey; and on this occasion he was quite impatient to begin. "Why not pack my things now? Why wait till three days before we go? Why not

A

speak much about getting to a new place until we come to it ?" These were frequent questions; but they readily accepted the reasons given them, and were overheard repeating them, with wise looks, to each other. "You know we must not be too sure of going, for something may happen to keep us here or we might die." And then, turning round, they would say, "But if we are alive, and if God does spare us, when may we pack? On Monday, Freddy's birthday ?"

They were very exact in expecting us to keep to our word, and on finding a parcel made up two days before the time fixed, they came to ask the reason. "Have you changed your mind? Did you not say that nothing was to be done till Monday?" On shewing them that it was baby's doll, and that she was too young to pack her own things even when Monday should come, they were satisfied.

?" Their eyes

"And what shall we see when we go rather brightened when they were told that the only promise we should make was to take them to see their little brother's grave. Thoughts of death never made them gloomy; indeed, they attached no meaning to the word but that it was the way of getting to heaven. "Can nobody go to heaven in fiery chariots now?"

asked little George one day. When we answered him, we little dreamed how the manner of his departure.

nearly such would be

During the long snow

storm of February, he was looking out and said, "See what a lot of it; the sky's coming down . . hear the wind! The Arran sea will be rising now! Poor children that have no shoes and stockings, what will they be doing? but we've got a nice home." Freddy, then sitting in his little wicker arm-chair by the library fire, said so sweetly, "The Grange isn't ours, it belongs to ; it's heaven that's our home." George also, when praying, as he seldom omitted to do for Mr Johnston, the Madras Missionary, who had been very ill, and whom the child tenderly loved, would say, "O Lord! do take him quick to heaven, and make him quite ready to go." He could not see why he ought not to pray for his removal thither, since it would make him so much happier to be there. "Why is Mr Johnston not gone to heaven yet? I thought he would have been there by this time." But the emaciated and toil-worn man outlived the child, and some days before he descended into the river of death, had given thanks for the children's easy passage through. Seated one day with their toys in a corner, six weeks

before their death, Georgy said, "Tell me, Freddy, what that verse means, which Mr Johnston always gives me, 'Taste and see that God is good.' Does it mean taste God and see whether he is good or not?" "Oh no, Georgy, it does not mean that at all: it means, 'taste and see,' taste him your own self, and then you'll see How good he is!" Freddy's voice and smile of simple yet deep comprehension of what he said was very touching. In the same conversation the little questioner said, "Do you know when the last day will be, Freddy?" "No, no; nobody but God and Jesus know that; the angels don't." "I do, Freddy; it will be at ten o'clock at night on God's clock." "Don't speak that way, God has no clock." "Yes, Freddy; for God's tongue is the clock, and when it strikes ten, judgment will come."

Glancing back on the little incidents of these their last days, there was evidence that their sudden transition was not an unprepared one.

On the 20th February, Freddy wrote to your little sister who occupied the warmest corner of his heart, and addressed to her his first letter, in her own language, at her home in the south of France, among the vines and olives.