What happiness followed! The vitality of it swept down upon him now,
so that he seemed never to have lived since then. He was the chosen
of God and every one knew it. What a little prig and yet how simple
it had all been, without any consciousness of insincerity or acting
on his part. God had chosen him and there he was, for ever and ever
safe and happy.
It was not only that he was assured that when the moment arrived he
would have, in Heaven, a "good time"--it was that he was greatly
exalted, so that he gave his twopence a week pocket-money to his
school-fellows, never pulled Amy's hair, never teased his mother's
canary. He had been aware, young though he was, of another life. He
prayed and prayed, he went to an endless succession of services and
meetings. There was Mr. Bates, one of the leading brethren then, who
loved him and spoilt him . . . above all, through and beyond it all,
there was his father, who adored him and whom he adored.
That adoration--of God, of his father, of life itself! Was it
possible that a small boy, normal and ordinary enough in other ways,
could feel so intensely such passions?
The dark room was crowding him with figures and scenes.
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