Prayer acquired a significance she had never seen in it before; the
tone of the prayer, too, was different from the set didactic utterances
too often called prayer, in which there is as much doctrine and as
little devotion as extempore prayer is capable of. It was not
expostulatory either, as if our Heavenly Father needed much urging to
make Him listen to our wants and our aspirations, but calm, trusting,
and elevated, as if God was near, and not far off from any one of His
creatures--as if we could lay our griefs and our cares, our joys and
our hopes, at His feet, knowing that we are sure of His blessing. Was
this union with God, then, really possible? Was there an inner life
that could flow on smoothly and calmly heavenward, in spite of the
shocks, and jars, and temptations of the outer life? Could she
learn to see and acknowledge God's goodness even in the bitterness of
the cup that was now at her lips?

It was no careless or preoccupied listener who followed point after
point of the sermon on the necessity of suffering for the perfecting of
the Christian character. The thoughts were genuine thoughts, not
borrowed from old books, but worked out of the very soul of the
preacher; and the language, clear, vigorous, and modern, clothed these
thoughts in the most impressive manner. There were none of the
conventionalisms of the pulpit orator, who often weakens the strongest
ideas by the hackneyed or obsolete phraseology he uses.

"Thank you, cousin Francis," said Jane, as they walked back to Mr.
Rennie's together. "This is, indeed, medicine to a mind diseased. I
will make my inquiries as I ought to do tomorrow; but if I fail I will
send in my application; and if I succeed there, I will go to this
asylum in a more contented spirit. It appears as if it were to