“I knew he’d say that, or something like it, but in my own mind I’d determined to get it back again from somewhere for him, but you’ll hear how I was prevented.  I noticed that he looked a bit tired and thin as I went out, and I said to him, ’You’re not looking very grand!  You must take care of yourself too.”

“‘No!  I don’t feel very well,’ he said.  ’I’ve been feeling my age a bit lately,’ he said laughing.

“‘I’ll look in to-morrow again,’ I said as I went away, and about the same time next day I went back to find him sitting still on one side of the fireplace and the wife on the other.  The girl had died suddenly in the night.  They’d got the photograph of the little grandchildren, and I could see the old woman had been crying.

“‘We shan’t see them in this world now,’ said Joe.

“I thought he was considering the money and began to talk.

“‘No!’ he said, ’it isn’t that.  The money was a bit of a sacrifice at the time, but I can see now why He asked me for it, and how thankful I am, as things have turned out, that I didn’t refuse to do that little thing for Him.  After you’d gone yesterday,’ he went on, ’I felt so poorly that when the doctor came to see that poor girl I told him what I felt like.  He looked a bit queer at first, and then he said: 

“’"Well, Joe,” he said, “I know very well that you’re not afraid of death, so I won’t beat about the bush,” he said.

“‘Thank you, doctor,’ I said.

“’"Of course,” he said, “I can’t be certain, but I’m afraid it’s cancer, and I can only say that I’ll make it as easy for you as I can.”  He’s a kind man, Mr Charter, though he’s reckoned rough.  Well, you can imagine how my first feeling was of thankfulness that I’d been kept in the love of God, and not held back for my own pleasure the money he was needing. He knew, you see, that I shouldn’t want it, and he sent that poor girl to be looked after by someone as had money to spare.

  ’"I’ll bless the Hand that guided,
  I’ll bless the Heart that planned,
  When throned where glory dwelleth,
  In Immanuel’s Land.”

So my summons is come, Mr Charter, though I’d no idea it was so near.’

“There’s not a great deal you can say at such times, and my heart was very full as I listened to him, though I knew that it was well with him.  I’m not going to tell you about the way he went through the valley, beautiful though it was, but I’ll tell you just this before I sit down.  Those young men of Joe’s Sunday class got together and talked, and though they were young working-men with not much of a wage, they each gave sixpence a week and the old man had ten shillings a week as long as he lived, and every time he got the ten shillings he’d cry, and say, that he didn’t know anybody in the world who’d had so much kindness shown to them all their life long as he had.”