A chaplain at one of our insane asylums related the following:
One day when he had been preaching a sermon to these poor, insane
people among whom only a few were able to make out what he said, one
of them came to him and announced: "I, too, can pray!" The chaplain
stopped surprised, because the man was completely an idiot. He had
forgotten everything--his name, his age, his home; about these things
he could give no information whatever. Somewhat doubtfully, the
chaplain asked him: "What can you pray?"
The poor fellow righted himself a little and answered: "What mother
taught me"; he then folded his hands and spoke the following verse with
perfect ease, and without mistakes:
Lord Jesus, who dost love me,
O, spread thy wings above me,
And shield me from alarm.
Everything was forgotten. Not one event in his life was he able to
recall in his memory. Everything had been left out of his soul, out of
his memory--only not that one prayer his mother had taught him.
I have myself had a somewhat similar experience. It was a Dane who
was not wholly demented--rather what is known in the vernacular as
"crazy"--and a little more. He never did any harm, and for that reason
he was sent to the poor-house instead of to an insane asylum. Whenever
he found an opportunity, he made his escape, and once in a while he
came to my home--once at eventide and he was then allowed to stay
overnight. In the evening he sat plucking at his clothes just like
a child, and he then said: "I'm clean enough, all right." A little
later he said: "I ain't forgotten how to pray--want to hear me?" Then
he folded his hands and spoke two little verses of the kind a mother
teaches her very young child. These he could remember. It was the same
thing over again: What mother taught me.
Remember this, you Christian mothers!