About his other affairs, especially his early imaginings and difficulties, he was free to talk; about coming to the Feet, and the Front Room, and being washed in the blood, and born again—­matters that made the old man wish their intimacy had not been so long delayed.

But now they made up for lost time.  Patiently and ably he taught the little boy those truths he needed to know; to seek for eternal life through the atoning blood of the Saviour, whose part it had been to purchase our redemption from God’s wrath by his death on Calvary.  Of other matters more technical:  of how the love that God of necessity has for His own infinitely perfect being is the reason and the measure of the hatred he has for sin.  Above all did he teach the little boy how to pray for the grace of effectual calling, in order that, being persuaded of his sin and misery, he might thereafter partake of justification, adoption, sanctification, and those several benefits which, in this life, do either accompany or flow from them.  They looked forward with equal eagerness to the day when he should become a great and good man, preaching the gospel of the crucified Son to spellbound throngs.

[Illustration:  “They looked forward with equal eagerness to the day when he should become a great and good man.”]

Together they began again the study of the Scriptures, the little boy now entering seriously upon that work of writing commentaries which had once engaged Allan.  In one of these school-boyish papers the old man came upon a passage that impressed him as notable.  It seemed to him that there was not only that vein of poetic imagination—­without which one cannot be a great preacher—­but a certain individual boldness of approach, monstrous in its naive sentimentality, to be sure, but indicating a talent that promised to mature splendidly.

“Now Jesus told his disciples,” it ran, “that he must be crucified before he could take his seat on the right hand of God and send to hell those who had rejected him.  He told them that one of them would have to betray him, because it must be like the Father had said.  It says at the last supper Jesus said, ’The Son of Man goeth as it is written of him; but woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed; it had been good for that man if he had not been born.’

“Now it says that Satan entered into Judas, but it looks to me more like the angel of the Lord might have entered into him, he being a good man to start with, or our Lord would not have chosen him to be a disciple.  Judas knew for sure, after the Lord said this, that one of the disciples had got to betray the Saviour and go to hell, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.  Well, Judas loved all the disciples very much, so he thought he would be the one and save one of the others.  So he went out and agreed to betray him to the rulers for thirty pieces of silver.  He knew if he didn’t do it, it might have to be Peter, James, or John, or