"'Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.'"
He recognised the words. They were spoken by One Whose Name he always held in reverence, spoken to His disciples in a far back age, before the knowledge of science and critical investigation had emerged from its swaddling clothes. But they were spoken in a woman's voice, spoken in almost wailing accents.
His whole being was filled with a great awe. The voice, the words coming to him, at such a time and in such a way, filled him with a great wonder, solemnised him to the centre of his being.
"If it were not a woman's voice, I might think it was He Himself who spoke," he said in a hoarse whisper.
Then he thought of the footsteps, thought of the ominous, sinister influences which had surrounded him a few minutes before.
"Lord, Lord Jesus Christ, help me!"
He said the words involuntarily. They had passed his lips before he knew he had spoken.
Was there any answer to his prayer? He only knew that he did not feel any fear, that a great peace came into his heart. He felt as he had never felt before, that God was a great reality. Perhaps that was why he was no longer lonely. There in the heart of the greatest city of the world, there in the darkness of a winter night, he was filled with a kind of consciousness that God was, that God cared, that he was not an orphan for whom no one cared, but a child of the Universal Father.
He looked up and saw the clouds swept across the sky. Here and there was a break through which a star shone. Eyes of heaven, they seemed to him. Yes, the spirit world was very near to him. Perhaps, perhaps—who knew?—there were messengers of the Unseen all around him.
"Earth is crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God."