"Then let me read the Bible to you, papa."
"The miserable old doubts will come back."
"Oh no! For now you feel the want—you wish to believe it. Oh, dear papa, turn the wish into prayer! You are not vexed with me, papa?"
"No, not at all vexed. Come to-night and read to me. I am clearer at that time, I think, than any other. When Helen has left me, do you come."
"I will—gladly."
"And leave me now, child."
She had nearly reached the door when he called her back.
"Clarice, you tell me to pray. How can I pray when I cannot believe? It would be a mockery."
Clarice came back with her slow and painful step, and looking down tenderly at him she said,—
"I have read in a book I like so much, that there is a lesson to be learned from one of our Lord's miracles, which one does not see just at first. It is the healing of the withered hand. The man's hand was quite useless, perhaps he had not been able to move it for years. Our Lord said, 'Stretch forth thine hand.' Suppose the man had answered, 'I cannot—there is no power in it?' But he just obeyed, and the power was there. Whether the intention to obey brought the power, or the power came with the intention, no one can say."