"My Father, once again Thy wayward child
In sorrow, shame, and weakness comes to Thee,
Confessing all my sin, my passion wild,
My selfishness and petty vanity.
"O Jesus, gentle Saviour, at Thy feet
I fall, where often I have knelt before;
Thou wilt not spurn, nor charge me with deceit,
Because old faults have mastered me once more.
"Thou knowest that I would be kind and true,
And that I hate the sins that pierced Thy side;
Thou seest that I often sadly view
The wrong that in my heart will still abide.
"But Thou didst come such erring ones to save,
And weakness wins Thy strong and tender love;
So not in vain I now forgiveness crave,
And cling to hopes long stored with Thee above.
"And yet I plead that Thou would'st surely keep
My weak and human heart in coming days;
Though now in penitence I justly weep,
O fill my future life with grateful praise."
As in tremulous, melting tones she sung this simple prayer with tears glistening in her eyes, Gregory was again conscious of the strong, answering emotion which the presence of deep feeling in those bound to us by some close tie of sympathy often excites. But far more than mere feeling moved him now. Her words and manner vivified an old truth familiar from infancy, but never realized or intelligently believed—the power of prayer to secure practical help from God.
How often men have lived and died poor just above mines of untold wealth! Gaunt famine has been the inmate of households while there were buried treasures under the hearthstone. So multitudes in their spiritual life are weak, despairing, perishing, when by the simple divinely appointed means of prayer they might fill their lives with strength and fulness. How long men suffered and died with diseases that seemed incurable, before they discovered in some common object a potent remedy that relieved pain and restored health!
As is the case with many brought up in Christian homes, with no one thing was Gregory more familiar than prayer. For many years he had said prayers daily, and yet he had seldom in all his life prayed, and of late years had come to be a practical infidel in regard to this subject. People who only say prayers, and expect slight, or no results from them, or are content year after year to see no results—who lack simple, honest, practical faith in God's word, such as they have in that of their physician or banker—who only feel that they ought to pray, and that in some vague, mystical manner it may do them good, are very apt to end as sceptics in regard to its efficacy and value. Or they may become superstitious, and continue to say prayers as the poor Indian mutters his incantation to keep off the witches. God hears prayer when His children cry to Him—when His faithful friends speak to Him straight and true from their hearts; and such know well that they are answered.
As Gregory looked at and listened to Annie Walton, he could no more believe that she was expressing a little aimless religious emotion, just as she would sing a sentimental ballad, than he could think that she was only showing purposeless filial affection if she were hanging on her father's arm and pleading for something vital to her happiness. The thought flashed across him, "Here may be the secret of her power to do right—the help she gets from a source above and beyond herself. Here may be the key to both her strength and weakness. Here glimmers light even for me."
Annie was about to sing again, but the interest which she had awakened was so strong that he could not endure delay. Anxiety as to his personal reception was forgotten, and he stepped forward and interrupted her with a question.