He sent her a wrathful glance, but laid aside his hat with much dignity.
“Almighty God, Lord of Heaven and Earth....”
Egholm’s prayer began as a sonorous commonplace, an echo from the halls of the Brethren of St. John. But gradually, as his subject grew on him, his own individual religious view for the time being showed through.
It was to God as the Owner of great possessions that he prayed.
If any had asked him who was the greatest inventor in the world, he would have confessed, with a pious bend of the head, that it was one of the least of God’s servants, an unworthy creature by the name of Egholm. But at the thought that God owned the fields, the woods, and the cities—the lands and the seas, Egholm, who had never owned more than the poor clothes he wore and a trifle of old furniture, was moved to prostrate himself before that mighty power.
It distressed him, however, that God should suffer those possessions of His to be put to ill use, in that He allowed them to fall into the wrong hands. It was by no means altogether selfishness that led him, Egholm, here to point out himself as one who would be a true and grateful steward of even the largest and most troublesome estate.
“Am I not Thy son, art Thou not my Father, whose will it is that all should be well with me?”
Hedvig heard but little of her father’s words: her eyes were following the hands of the clock; it was jerking by tiny stages on towards twelve. There it stopped, and seemed to linger for a moment, as if inviting the figure to join it on its way; then on again, irrevocably on and on. She clenched her teeth in impotent fury. Then suddenly a new note was touched in her father’s prayer—something which made her all attention.
He had commenced, quite advisedly, with the practical human tactics of praising those qualities in the Lord which he himself wished to call forth towards himself.
“Thy goodness is without end and beyond all measure. So great is Thy love to us poor children of men, that Thou hearest every prayer we offer up to Thee, and grantest it. It is written: ‘Ask, and thou shalt receive!’ So great is Thy loving-kindness unto us, that Thou wouldst not have us suffer more, and therefore sayest, let there be an end. Behold, Egholm Thy servant groaneth under the weight of poverty; Thou seest, and it is enough; Thou sayest the word, and lo, Thy servant cometh into riches and happiness....”