Into one very poor home, a laboring man’s home, the plague had come.  And the father and children had been carried out until on the day of this story there remained but two, the mother and her baby boy of perhaps five years.  The boy crept up into his mother’s lap, put his arms about her neck, and with his baby eyes so close, said, “Mother, father’s dead, and brothers and sister are dead;—­if you die, what’ll I do?”

The poor mother had thought of it, of course, What could she say?  Quieting her voice as much as possible, she said, “If I die, Jesus will come for you.”  That was quite satisfactory to the boy.  He had been taught about Jesus, and felt quite safe with Him, and so went about his play on the floor.  And the boy’s question proved only too prophetic.  And quick work was done by the dread disease.  And soon she was being laid away by strange hands.

It is not difficult to understand that in the sore distress of the time the boy was forgotten.  When night came, he crept into bed, but could not sleep.  Late in the night he got up, found his way out along the street, down the road, in to where he had seen the men put her.  And throwing himself down on the freshly shoveled earth, sobbed and sobbed until nature kindly stole consciousness away for a time.

Very early the next morning a gentleman coming down the road from some errand of mercy, looked over the fence, and saw the little fellow lying there.  Quickly suspecting some sad story, he called him, “My boy, what are you doing there?—­My boy, wake up, what are you doing there all alone?” The boy waked up, rubbed his baby eyes, and said, “Father’s dead, and brothers and sister’s dead, and now—­mother’s—­dead—­too.  And she said, if she did die, Jesus would come for me.  And He hasn’t come.  And I’m so tired waiting.”  And the man swallowed something in his throat, and in a voice not very clear, said, “Well, my boy, I’ve come for you.”  And the little fellow waking up, with his baby eyes so big, said “I think you’ve been a long time coming.”

Whenever I read these last words of Jesus or think of them, there comes up a vision that floods out every other thing.  It is of Jesus Himself standing on that hilltop.  His face is all scarred and marred, thorn-torn and thong-cut.  But it is beautiful, passing all beauty of earth, with its wondrous beauty light.  Those great eyes are looking out so yearningly, out as though they were seeing men, the ones nearest and those farthest.  His arm is outstretched with the hand pointing out.  And you cannot miss the rough jagged hole in the palm.  And He is saying, "Go ye." The attitude, the scars, the eyes looking, the hand pointing, the voice speaking, all are saying so intently, "Go ye."