“My, how far off the subject I got! I started out to tell you all about Ben Butler, and—and—how he come in answer to prayer,” said the Bishop solemnly.
Bud grinned: “It muster been, 'Now I lay me down to sleep.'”
The Bishop laughed: “Well I'll swun if he ain't sound asleep sho' 'nuff.” He laughed again: “Bud, you're gittin' too bright for anything. I jes' don't see how the old man's gwinter talk to you much longer 'thout he goes to school agin.”
“No—Ben Butler is a answer to prayer,” he went on.
“The trouble with the world is it don't pray enough. Prayer puts God into us, Bud—we're all a little part of God, even the worst of us, an' we can make it big or let it die out accordin' as we pray. If we stop prayin' God jes' dies out in us. Of course God don't answer any fool prayer, for while we're here we are nothin' but a bundle of laws, an' the same unknown law that moves the world around makes yo' heart beat. But God is behind the law, an' if you get in harmony with God's laws an' pray, He'll answer them. Christ knowed this, an' there was some things that even He wouldn't ask for. When the Devil tempted Him to jump off the top of the mountain. He drawed the line right there, for He knowed if God saved Him by stoppin' the law of gravitation it meant the wreck of the world.”
“Bud,” he went on earnestly, “I've lived a long time an' seed a heap o' things, an' the plaines' thing I ever seed in my life is that two generations of scoffers will breed a coward, an' three of 'em a thief, an' that the world moves on only in proportion as it's got faith in God.
“I was ruined after the war—broken—busted—ruined! An' I owed five hundred dollars on the little home up yander on the mountain. When I come back home from the army I didn't have nothin' but one old mare,—a daughter of that Kathleena I told you about. I knowed I was gone if I lost that little home, an' so one night I prayed to the Lord about it an' then it come to me as clear as it come to Moses in the burnin' bush. God spoke to me as clear as he did to Moses.”
“How did he say it?” asked Bud, thoroughly frightened and looking around for a soft spot to jump and run.
“Oh, never mind that,” went on the Bishop—“God don't say things out loud—He jes' brings two an' two together an' expects you to add 'em an' make fo'. He gives you the soil an' the grain an' expects you to plant, assurin' you of rain an' sunshine to make the crop, if you'll only wuck. He comes into yo' life with the laws of life an' death an' takes yo' beloved, an' it's His way of sayin' to you that this life ain't all. He shows you the thief an' the liar an' the adulterer all aroun' you, an' if you feel the shock of it an' the hate of it, it's His voice tellin' you not to steal an' not to lie an' not to be impure. You think only of money until you make a bad break an' loose it all. That's His voice tellin' you that money ain't everything in life. He puts opportunities befo' you, an' if you grasp 'em it's His voice tellin' you to prosper an' grow fat in the land. No, He don't speak out, but how clearly an' unerringly He does speak to them that has learned to listen for His voice!
“I rode her across the river a hundred miles up in Marshall County, Tennessee, and mated her to a young horse named Tom Hal. Every body knows about him now, but God told me about him fust.