“But don’t you wish to?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” said the child, and running back, she kneeled down at Zuleime’s knees, and placed her little hands together and looked up for instruction.
Zuleime thought the shortest, simplest infant’s prayer she knew of was the best, because readily understood and easily remembered. And so she took the little one’s folded hands between her own, and bade her repeat after her—
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
“That is a sweet little verse. What is my soul?” asked the child.
Zuleime hesitated, puzzled for an answer; then she said for want of a better—
“It is what you think with, and wonder with, and what you are sorry or glad with, and what will live forever.”