O Lord Jesus Christ! let the crying and sighing of the poor come before
Thee. Withhold not Thy countenance from the tears and beseechings of
the woebegone. Help by Thine outstretched arm, and avert our sorrow
from us. Awake us who are lying dead in sin and in great danger, and
whose thoughts often wander from Thee. Let us trust with all our hearts
that nothing can be so broad, so deep, so high, nor so arduous that Thy
grace and favour cannot overcome it; that we so can and must be holpen
out of every difficulty and discomfiture when Thou takest compassion
upon us. Help us, then, through grace, and so I will praise Thee from
now to all eternity.
Hans has bidden good-bye to Gretchen, and has kissed the children he
may never see more. He has marched with his fellows to the depôt, and
got his uniform and arms. The _Militärzug_ has carried him to
Kreuznach, and thence he has marched sturdily up the Nahe Valley and
over the ridge into the Kollerthaler Wald. His last halt was at
Puttingen, but Kameke has sent an aide back at the gallop to summon up
all supports. The regiment stacks arms for ten minutes' breathing-time
while the cannon-thunder is borne backward on the wind to the ears of
the soldiers. In two hours more they will be across the French
frontier, storming furiously up the Spicheren Berg. As Hans gropes in
his tunic pocket for his tinder-box, the little war prayer-book somehow
gets between his fingers. He takes it out with the pipe-light, and
finds in its pages a prayer surely suited to the situation--the prayer