with hunger, whilst he himself had food to eat. So he divided both the
bread and the bacon into two equal shares, with his knife, and then,
going up to Tom, gave him one portion, and desired him to eat it. Tom
looked at Ned in some surprise, and then, taking the food that was
offered him, ate it in a ravenous manner, without saying a word.

"He might just have thanked me," thought Ned to himself; but he forbore
to tell Tom so.

Ned always read a chapter in the Bible to his grandmother every night
when he came home from work. It happened that this evening the chapter
fixed on was the twelfth of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. He was
much struck by one of the verses in it: "Therefore if thine enemy
hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou
shalt heap coals of fire upon his head."

"Grandmother," said Ned, when he had concluded the chapter, "I
understand the first part of this verse very well, it is plain enough;
but what is meant by the words, 'for in so doing thou shalt heap coals
of fire upon his head?'"

His grandmother replied, that this passage had once puzzled her; but
that an old lady with whom she had lived when she was a girl, and who
kindly took great pains in explaining different parts of the Bible that
were hard to be understood, had made this quite clear to her.

"She told me," continued his grandmother, "that the Apostle alludes to
the custom of melting gold and other metals by fire; and his meaning is,
that as coals of fire melt and soften the metals on which they are
heaped, so by kindness and gentleness we may melt and soften our enemy,