DANIEL’S PRAYER.
The two following days, Friday and Saturday, were always a busy time
at the chapel, for the whole place had to be swept and dusted in
preparation for the coming Sunday. Never had Daniel felt so depressed
and downhearted as when he entered the chilly and empty chapel early in
the morning and alone; for Jessica was to follow him by and by, when
her mother had strolled away for the day to her old haunts.
Only a week ago he and Jessica had gone cheerfully about their work
together, Jessica’s blithe, clear young voice echoing through the place
as she sang to herself, or called to him from some far-off pew, or down
from the gallery. But now everything was upset and in confusion. He
mounted the pulpit steps, and after shaking the cushions, and dusting
every ledge and crevice, he stood upright in a strange and solemn
reverie, as he looked round upon the empty pews, which were wont to be
so crowded on a Sunday.
It would make a wonderful difference to the place, he thought, if
anything worse should happen to his master; for even to himself Daniel
could not bear to say the sad word, death. They could never find his
like again. Never! he repeated, laying his hand reverently upon the
crimson cushion, where the minister’s grey head had sunk in sudden
dumbness before God; and two large solemn tears forced themselves into
Daniel’s eyes, and rolled slowly down his cheeks.
He did not know who ever would fill the pulpit even on the coming
Sabbath; but he felt that he could never bear to stay at the chapel
after its glory was departed, and see the congregation dwindling down,
and growing more and more scanty every week, until only a few drowsy
hearers came to listen sleepily to a lifeless preacher. No! no! That
would go a good way towards breaking his heart.
Besides all this, how he longed to be able to ask the minister what
he ought to do about Jessica’s mother! But whether for instruction in
the pulpit or for counsel in private the minister’s voice was hushed;
and Daniel’s heart was not a whit lighter, as he slowly descended the
pulpit steps.
It was getting on for noon before Jessica followed him, bringing his
dinner with her in a little basket. Her eyes were red with tears, and
she was very quiet while he ate with a poor appetite the food she set
before him. He felt reluctant to ask after her mother; but when the
meal was finished Jessica drew near to him, and took hold of his hand
in both her own.
“Mr. Daniel,” she said, very sorrowfully, “when mother awoke this
morning I told her everything about Jesus Christ, and God, and heaven;
and she knew it all before! Before I was born, she said!”
“Ah!” ejaculated Daniel, but not in a tone of surprise; only because
Jessica paused and looked mournfully into his face.
“Yes,” continued Jessica, shaking her head hopelessly, “she knew about
it, and she never told me; never! She never spoke of God at all, only
when she was cursing. I don’t know now anything that’ll make her a good
woman. I thought that if she only heard what I said she’d love God, but
she only laughed at me, and said it’s an old story. I don’t know what
can be done for her now.”
Jessica’s tears were falling fast again, and Daniel did not know how to
comfort her. There was little hope, he knew, of a woman so enslaved by
drunkenness being brought back again to religion and God.
“If the minister could only see her!” said Jessica. “He speaks as if he
had seen God, and talked to him sometimes; and she’d be sure to believe
him. I don’t know how to say the right things.”
“No, no!” answered Daniel. “She saw him on Sunday, before he had the
stroke, and he talked a long time to her. No! she won’t be changed by
him.”
“She’s my mother, you know,” repeated Jessica anxiously.
“Ay!” said Daniel, “and that puzzles me, Jessica; I don’t know what to
do.”
“Couldn’t we pray to God,” suggested Jessica, again, “now, before we go
on any farther?”
“Maybe it would be the best thing to do,” agreed Daniel, rising
from his chair and kneeling down with Jessica beside him. At first
he attempted to pray like some of the church-members at the weekly
prayer-meeting, in set and formal phrases; but he felt that if he
wished to obtain any real blessing he must ask for it in simple and
childlike words, as if speaking face to face with his Heavenly Father;
and this was the prayer he made, after freeing himself from the
ceremonial etiquette of the prayer-meetings:
“Lord, thou knowest that Jessica’s mother is come back, and what a
drunken and disorderly woman she is, and we don’t know what to do with
her, and the minister cannot give us his advice. Sometimes I’m afraid
I love my money too much yet, but, Lord, if it’s that, or anything
else that’s hard in my heart, so as to hinder me from doing what the
Saviour, Jesus Christ, would do if he was in my place, I pray thee to
take it away, and make me see clearly what my Christian duty is. Dear
Lord, I beseech thee, keep both me and Jessica from evil.”
Daniel rose from his knees a good deal relieved and lightened in
spirit. He had simply, with the heart of a child, laid his petition
before God; and now he felt that it was God’s part to direct him.
Jessica herself seemed brighter, for if the matter had been laid in
God’s hands she felt that it was certain to come out all right in the
end.
They went back to their work in the chapel, and though it was
melancholy to remember that their own minister would be absent from the
pulpit on the Sunday which was drawing near, they felt satisfied with
the thought that God knew all, and was making all things work together
for the good of those who loved him.