Mrs. Hartley felt sorry for her son’s perplexity, and quietly said, “Then, Ben, you don’t believe in the Lord’s prayer?”

“The Lord’s prayer, mother!  Why, there’s nothing there to help a fellow do his sums.”

“O, yes; there is.  There is help for every trouble in life in the Lord’s prayer, if we only know how to use it.  I was trying a long time before I found out what the last part of this prayer really means.  I’m no minister, or scholar, Ben, but I’ll try and show you.  You know that in this prayer we ask God for our daily bread; we ask him to keep us from evil; and to forgive us our sins; and then we say:  ‘for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.’  It’s God’s power that we rely on—­not our own; and it often helps me, Ben, when I have something hard to do.  I say, ’For thine is the power—­this is my duty, heavenly Father; but I can’t do it myself; give me thy power to help me,’ and he does it, Ben, he does it.”

Ben sat silent.  It seemed almost too familiar a prayer.  And yet he remembered when he had to stay home from school because he had no clothes fit to go in, how he prayed to God about it, and the minister’s wife brought him a suit the very next day.  “But a boy’s sums, mother! it seems like such a little thing to ask God about.”

“Those sums are not a little thing to you, Ben.  Your success at school depends on your knowing how to do them. That, is as much to you, as many a greater thing to some one else.  Now I care a great deal about that, because I love you.  And I know your Father in heaven loves you more than I do.  I would gladly help you, if I could; but he can help you.  His ‘is the power;’ ask him to help you.”

After doing an errand for his mother, Ben picked up his book and slate and went up to his little room.  Kneeling down by the bed he repeated the Lord’s prayer.  When he came to—­“thine is the kingdom,” he stopped a moment, and then said, with all his heart—­“’And thine is the power,’ heavenly Father.  I want power to know how to do these sums.  There’s no one else to help me.  Lord, please give me power, for Jesus’ sake, Amen.”

Ben waited a moment, and then, still on his knees, he took his slate and tried again.  Do you ask me if he succeeded?  Remember what Saint James says, “If any man lack wisdom let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not:  and it shall be given him.”  Jas. i:  5.  That is God’s promise, and heaven and earth must pass away before one of his promises shall fail.  Ben had prayed to God to help him, and God answered his prayer.  He tried once more to work out those sums.  After thinking over them a little while, he saw the mistake he had made in neglecting one of the rules for working the sums.  He corrected this mistake, and then he found they all worked out beautifully.  The next day he was head of the class; for he was the only boy who could say that he had done the sum himself, without getting any one at home to help him.