teaching sometimes. You are always telling us to trust in God. Surely it is
a poor creed that will only allow us to trust in God for ourselves--a very
selfish creed. There must be something wrong there. I should say that the
man who can only trust God for himself is not half a Christian. Either he
is so selfish that that satisfies him, or he has such a poor notion of God
that he cannot trust him with what most concerns him. The former is not
your case, Harry: is the latter, then?--You see I must take my turn at the
preaching sometimes. Mayn't I, dearest?"

She took my hand in both of hers. The truth arose in my heart. I never
loved my wife more than at that moment. And now I could not speak for other
reasons. I saw that I had been faithless to my God, and the moment I could
command my speech, I hastened to confess it.

"You are right, my dear," I said, "quite right. I have been wicked, for I
have been denying my God. I have been putting my providence in the place
of his--trying, like an anxious fool, to count the hairs on Wynnie's head,
instead of being content that the grand loving Father should count them. My
love, let us pray for Wynnie; for what is prayer but giving her to God and
his holy, blessed will?"

We sat hand in hand. Neither spoke aloud for some minutes, but we spoke in
our hearts to God, talking to him about Wynnie. Then we rose together, and
walked homeward, still in silence. But my heart and hand clung to my wife
as to the angel whom God had sent to deliver me out of the prison of my
faithlessness. And as we went, lo! the sky was glorious again. It had faded
from my sight, had grown flat as a dogma, uninteresting as "a foul and
pestilent congregation of vapours;" the moon had been but a round thing
with the sun shining upon it, and the stars were only minding their own
business. But now the solemn march towards an unseen, unimagined goal had