“The way I reason is this-a-way,” he began.  “All that some people have is their feelings, nothing else.  Take a tramp, for instance, as I often have.  When you begin to sum up to see where to begin, you find that all he has in the world, besides his pipe and a little tobacco, is his feelings.  It’s all most people have, rich or poor, though a good many think they have more than that.  I try not to injure anybody’s feelings.”

He looked at me as though he had expressed the solution of the difficulties of the world, and the wonderful, kindly eyes beamed in rich romance upon the scene.

“Very good,” I said, “but what do you do?  How do you go about it to aid your fellowmen?”

“Well,” he answered, unconsciously overlooking his own personal actions in the matter, “I try to bring them the salvation which the Bible teaches.  You know I stand on the Bible, from cover to cover.”

“Yes, I know you stand on the Bible, but what do you do?  You don’t merely preach the Bible to them.  What do you do?”

“No, sir, I don’t preach the Bible at all.  I stand on it myself.  I try as near as I can to do what it says.  I go wherever I can be useful.  If anybody is sick or in trouble, I’m ready to go.  I’ll be a nurse.  I’ll work and earn them food.  I’ll give them anything I can—­that’s what I do.”

“How can you give when you haven’t anything?  They told me in Noank that you never worked for money.”

“Not for myself alone.  I never take any money for myself alone.  That would be self-seeking.  Anything I earn or take is for the Lord, not me.  I never keep it.  The Lord doesn’t allow a man to be self-seeking.”

“Well, then, when you get money what do you do with it?  You can’t do and live without money.”

He had been looking away across the river and the bridge to the city below, but now he brought his eyes back and fixed them on me.

“I’ve been working now for twenty years or more, and, although I’ve never had more money than would last me a few days at a time, I’ve never wanted for anything and I’ve been able to help others.  I’ve run pretty close sometimes.  Time and time again I’ve been compelled to say, ’Lord, I’m all out of coal,’ or ’Lord, I’m going to have to ask you to get me my fare to New Haven tomorrow,’ but in the moment of my need He has never forgotten me.  Why, I’ve gone down to the depot time and time again, when it was necessary for me to go, without five cents in my pocket, and He’s been there to meet me.  Why, He wouldn’t keep you waiting when you’re about His work.  He wouldn’t forget you—­not for a minute.”

I looked at the man in open-eyed amazement.

“Do you mean to say that you would go down to a depot without money and wait for money to come to you?”

“Oh, brother,” he said, with the softest light in his eyes, “if you only knew what it is to have faith!”

He laid his hand softly on mine.