"Now I lay me" would not do for the poor creature who had been lying
down many days and might never rise again; "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John" was more appropriate, but there was that uncertainty about it
being a prayer at all. "Our Father"--Ah! He caught at the words and
spoke them.

"Our Father which art"--but what came next? That was where he had always
had to be prompted, and now, in his confusion, all the rest had fled
from his mind. But now it seemed that with the words the Presence had
drawn near, was standing close by the chair. His mind leaped forth with
the consciousness that he might talk with this invisible Presence,
unfold his own perplexities and restlessness, and perhaps find out what
it all meant. With scarcely a hesitation his clear voice went on eagerly
now:

"Our Father, which art in this room, show us how to find and know You."
He could not remember afterward what else he said. Something about his
own longing, and the old woman's pain and loneliness. He was not sure if
it was really a prayer at all, that halting petition.

He got up from his knees greatly embarrassed; but more by the Presence
to whom he had dared to speak thus for the first time on his own
account, than by the little old woman, whose hands were still clasped in
reverence, and down whose withered cheeks the tears were coursing. The
smoky walls, the cracked stove, the stack of discouraged dishes, seemed
to fade away, and the room was somehow full of glory. He was choking
with the oppression of it, and with a kind of sinking at heart lest the
prayer had been only an outbreak of his own desire to know what this
Force or Presence was that seemed dominating him so fully these days.