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.