XXI. To Whom He Forgave Most

For three days Dick made steady progress toward health, but his progress was slow. Any mental effort produced severe pain in his head and sufficed to raise his temperature several points. As he gained in strength and became more and more clear in his thinking his anxiety in regard to his work began to increase. His congregations would be waiting him on Sunday, and he could not bear to think of their being disappointed. With no small effort had he gathered them together, and a single failure on his part he knew would have disastrous effect upon the attendance. He was especially concerned about the service at Bull Crossing, which was at once the point where the work was the most difficult, and, at the present juncture, most encouraging. Under his instructions Barney sought to secure a substitute for the service at Bull Crossing, but without result. Preachers were scarce in that country and every preacher had more work in sight than he could overtake. And so Dick fretted and wrought himself into a fever, until the doctor took him sternly to task.

"I don't see that it's your business to worry, Dick," he said. "I suppose you consider yourself as working under orders, and it is your belief, isn't it, that the One who gives the orders is the One who has laid you down here?"

"That's true," said Dick wearily, "but there's the people. A lot of them come a long way. It's been hard to get them together, and I hate to disappoint them."

"Well, we'll get someone," replied Barney. "We're a pretty hard combination to beat, aren't we, Margaret? There will be a man to take the service at Bull Crossing if I have to take it myself--a desperate resort, indeed."

"Why not, Barney?" asked Dick. "You could do it well."

"What? Did you ever hear me talk? I can talk a little with my fingers, but my tongue is unconscionably slow."

"There was a man once slow of speech," replied Dick quietly, "but he was given a message and he led a nation into freedom."

Barney nodded. "I remember him. But he could do things."

"No," answered Dick, "but he believed God could do things."

"Perhaps so. That was rather long ago."

"With God," replied Dick earnestly, "there is no such thing as long ago."

"All the same," said Barney, "I guess these things don't happen now."

"I believe they happen," replied his brother, "where God finds a man who will take his life in his hand and go."

"Well, I don't know about that," replied Barney, "but I do know that you must quit talking and sleep. Now, hear me, drop that meeting out of your mind. I'll look after it."

But Saturday came and, in spite of every effort on Barney's part, he