“He hasn’t answered me,” murmured the old man. And then the inquiry arose in his heart, why God had not answered him?
Somehow there came into his mind with strange swiftness those old words: “With what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again.”
Was not that letter the obstacle on the stairs of the better life he was trying to climb? Did he not stumble over it again and again? Would God extend mercy to him until he had had compassion on a fellow creature?
“I will!” he sobbed. “I will be merciful. I will extend the time for the payment of that note.”
And down into his soul as through some window opened just above him, streamed the light of the forgiving presence of God. No obstacle now on the stairway that John Elliott was trying to climb!
The first thing he did when he left that place of prayer, was to take pen and paper. At first he thought he would simply extend the time for the payment of that note.
“I can do better than that,” he said, and wrote the note already given.
To Aunt Lydia, he sent a request that the note might be handed to her husband, Christmas day. Aunt Lydia dropped it into that capacious stocking. There was a happy Christmas gathering at Boardman Blake’s. Walter’s father and mother were there, and some of the neighbors were invited to “drop in.”
“We must ask the Elliotts,” said Aunt Lydia, and May, Amy, and Capt. Elliott came to represent them.
Miss P. Green too had been invited, and with her appeared her boarder, Chauncy Aldrich. Walter had faithfully kept his word to Chauncy, and careful nursing met with its reward. Back from the gates of death, was Chauncy brought, and he also came into a new life, spiritually. He walked after Christ in love and obedience. He returned after Christmas to the home of his parents, and he took his Christian principles with him and steadfastly adhered to them.
When the lights at the Christmas gathering had all been extinguished, and Walter was in his room upstairs, before retiring he looked out of the window toward the sea. He detected a bright little light crawling along through the darkness in the direction of the beach opposite the Crescent, “That is Tom Walker’s lantern,” thought Walter. “It is his watch, and he is out upon his beat.”
