“Yes, childlike trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour gives your soul peace with God and makes your entrance into the house of many mansions sure!  He went back to prepare a place for us who believe on Him, and promised to come again and receive us unto Himself, that where He is, there we may be also.  Jesus Himself is the way home!”

So clearly did he explain the plan of salvation that Rosa began to grasp the truth.  All the pent-up love of her ardent nature she began to bestow upon Jesus, and in the joy of this new experience forgot her crushing sorrow.

The sermon closed by another extended reference to heaven, with special emphasis upon the fact of its being real, and not simply a state of blissful being, as many profess to believe, and with an appeal to the skeptical to take Jesus at His word.

“He said, ‘I go to prepare a place for you.’  Is it not His positive statement sufficient?  Has He ever proved untrue to His promises concerning this life?  Has He ever turned a deaf ear to the penitent sinner’s prayer?  Has He ever refused to speak the word of comfort to the heart breaking beneath its load?  Has He ever called one to some particular service in His vineyard without supplying the needed strength?  Has He ever forgotten to pour forth His abundant and sustaining grace upon the trusting soul about the pass through the dark, mysterious valley of death?  And would He say that He was going to prepare a place for us, that where He is there we may be also, meaning only that He was going to prepare a state of glorified—­nothingness?  Impossible!  It is an insult to our Lord.

“He who left the glory-circled throne for thirty-three years of wandering in this world, for rejection by those whom He came to save, for Gethsemane and for Calvary, will hold up no false hope to lure onward those who love Him.

“He who created this beautiful world, inhabited by fallen sinful beings, will not forget to provide a home for His own who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

“Yes, heaven is a place, where the power of infinity itself is exhausted in the beautifying thereof!  No sin, no sickness, no sorrow will ever pass through those gates of pearl.  The saints of all ages are there, our loved ones whom we have lost a while are there, and above all our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!

“Ah, if Satan has deluded you into a state of unbelief now, the time is coming when you will believe!  Some day with unwilling feet you must part from your Lord forever to spend eternity in hell; or with hosannas and shouts of victory upon your lips, you will pass into the presence of Him who sits upon the throne, to praise Him and serve Him forever and ever!”

At the conclusion of the service, Dr. and Mrs. Dale left without waiting to speak to the pastor.

Mrs. Dale, however, stopped ostensibly to greet Esther, but in reality to look more closely at the child who had attracted her quite as much as her husband.