"Give us this day our daily bread."
"Our daily bread," lingered a moment on the air, as the mother's voice
was hushed into silence.
"And forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors."
"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever."
"Amen."
All these holy words were said piously and fervently by the little
ones, as they knelt with clasped hands beside their mother. Then as
their thoughts, uplifted on the wings of prayer to their heavenly
Father, came back again and rested on their earthly parents, a warmer
love came gushing from their hearts.
Pure kisses--tender kisses--the fond "good-night." What a sweet
agitation pervaded all their feelings. Then two dear heads were placed
side by side on the snowy pillows, the mother's last good-night kiss
given, and the shadowy curtains drawn.
What a pulseless stillness reigns without the chamber. Inwardly, the
parents' ears are bent. They have given those innocent ones into the
keeping of God's angels, and they can almost hear the rustle of their
garments as they gather around their sleeping babes. A sigh, deep and
tremulous, breaks on the air. Quickly the mother turns to the father
of her children, with a look of earnest inquiry upon her countenance.
And he answers thus her silent questions:--
"Far back through many years have my thoughts been wandering. At my
mother's knee thus said I nightly my childhood's evening prayer. It
was that best and holiest of all prayers, 'Our Father,' that she
taught me. Childhood and my mother passed away. I went forth as a man
into the world, strong, confident, and self-seeking. Once I came into
great temptation. Had I fallen in that temptation, I should have
fallen never to rise again. I was about yielding. All the barriers I
could oppose to it in the in-rushing flood, seemed just ready to give
way, when, as I sat in my room one evening, there came from an
adjoining chamber, now first occupied for many weeks, the murmur of
low voices. I listened. At first no articulate sound was heard, and
yet something in the tones stirred my heart with new and strong
emotions. At length there came to my ears, in the earnest, loving
voice of a woman, the words,--
"'Deliver us from evil.'
"For an instant, it seemed to me as if that voice were that of my
mother. Back with a sudden bound, through all the intervening years,
went my thoughts, and a child again I was kneeling at my mother's
knee. Humbly and reverently I said over the words of the holy prayer
she had taught me, heart and eye uplifted to heaven. The hour and
power of darkness had passed. I was no longer standing in slippery
places, with a flood of water ready to sweep me to destruction; but my
feet were on a rock. My pious mother's care had saved her son. In the
holy words she had taught me in childhood was a living power to resist
evil through all my after life. Ah! that unknown mother, as she taught
her child to repeat this evening prayer, how little dreamed she that
the holy words were to reach a stranger's ears, and save him through
the memory of his own childhood and his own mother. And yet it was so.
What a power there is in God's word, as it flows into and rests in the
minds of innocent childhood."
Tears were in the eyes of the wife and mother, as she lifted her face
and gazed with a subdued tenderness, upon the countenance of her
husband. Her heart was too full for utterance. A little while she thus
gazed, and then with a trembling joy, laid her hand upon his bosom.
Angels were in the chamber where their dear ones slept, and they felt
their holy presence.
Hallowed, ay, hallowed! not alone in prayer,
But in our daily thoughts and daily speech;
At altar and at hearthstone--everywhere
That temple-priests or home-apostles preach.
Oh, not by words alone, but by our deeds,
And by our faith, and hope, and spirit's flame,
And by the nature of our private creeds,
We hallow best, and glorify _thy_ Name.
Nature doth hallow it. In every star,
And every flower, and leaf, and leaping wave,
She praises Thee, who, from Thy realm afar,
Such stores of beauty to this fair earth gave.
But these alone should not Thy love proclaim--
Our hearts, our souls respond--"_All hallowed be Thy Name_."