He had made up his mind to give
the money back to the church, and now when he found that
it had gone, and gone in such a way, he felt vaguely that
it was a punishment for his own meanness, and in a small
measure, at least, he was grateful that no worse evil
had resulted from it.
"Father, did you put that money there?" Tom asked.
"Yes, I did Tom," he answered. "I ought to be ashamed of
myself for being so careless, too."
"It just seemed as if it was the devil himself," Tom
said. "I had no intention of drinking when I took out
that money."
"Well, Tom," his father said, with a short laugh, "I
guess the devil had a hand in it, he was in me quite a
bit when I put it there, I kin tell ye."
The next Sunday morning Samuel Motherwell, his wife and
son, went to church. Sam placed on the plate an envelope
containing fifty dollars.
On the following morning Sam had just cut two rounds with
the binder when the Reverend Hugh Grantley drove into
the field. Sam stopped his binder and got down.
"Well, Mr. Motherwell," the minister said, holding out
his hand cordially as he walked over to where Sam stood,
"how did it happen?"
Sam grasped his hand warmly.
"Ask Tom," he said, nodding his head toward his son who
was stooking the grain a little distance away. "It is
Tom's story."
Mr. Grantley did ask Tom, and Tom told him; and there in
the sunshine, with the smell of the ripe grain in their
nostrils as the minister helped him to carry the sheaves,
a new heaven and a new earth were opened to Tom, and a
new life was born within him, a life of godliness and of
brotherly kindness, whose blessed influence has gone far
beyond the narrow limits of that neighbourhood.
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