Cast out our sin, and enter in,
Be born in us to-day.”
Then William Sewall made a prayer. Those who had been looking to see old Elder Blake take this part in the service began to wonder if he had been asked into the pulpit simply as a courtesy. They supposed he could pray, at least. They knew he had never ceased doing it—and for them. Elder Blake had not an enemy in the village. It seemed strange that he couldn’t be given some part, in spite of his extreme age. To be sure, it was many years since anybody had asked him to take part in any service whatsoever, even a funeral service—for which, as is well
understood, a man retains efficiency long after he has ceased to be of use in the pulpit, no matter how devastating may be the weather. But that fact did not seem to bear upon the present situation.
A number of people, among them Miss Jane Pollock, were beginning to feel more than a little indignant about it, and so lost the most of Sewall’s prayer, which was a good one, and not out of the prayer-book, though there were phrases in it which suggested that source, as was quite natural. The city man meant to do it all, then. Doubtless he thought nobody from the country knew how to do more than to pronounce the benediction. Doubtless that was to be Elder Blake’s insignificant part—to pronounce the——
Miss Jane Pollock looked up quickly. She had been staring steadily at the back of Maria Hill’s
mink collar, in front of her, through the closing sentences of the prayer. But what was this? Elder Blake had risen and was coming forward. Was he going to read a hymn? But he had no book. And he had taken off his spectacles. He could see better, as was known, without his spectacles, when looking at a distance.
William Sewall’s prayer was not ended. He could no longer be heard by the people, but in his seat, behind the drooping figure of the old man, he was asking things of the Lord as it seemed to him he had never asked anything before. Could His poor, feeble, “superannuated” old servant ever speak the message that needed to be spoken that night? William Sewall felt more than ever that he himself could not have done it. Could Ebenezer Blake?
“Make him strong, O God,—make
him strong,” requested William Sewall, fervently. Then, forgetting even a likeness to prayer-book phrase, he added, with fists unconsciously tight-clenched, in the language of the athletic field where a few years back he himself had taken part in many a hard-fought battle— “Help him to buck up!”