“Yes,” I replied, “but,”—­

Before I could go farther he again interrupted me:  “Oh, Doctor, is there nothing, nothing that will save her?  Can nobody, nobody save my sister?”

For an instant the teachings of a tender and pious mother flashed over my mind.  They had been long neglected, were almost forgotten.  California, in those days, was not well calculated to fasten more deeply on the mind home teachings.  There were very few whose religious training survived the ordeal, and for a long time I had hardly thought of prayer.  But the question brought out with the vividness of a flash of lightning, and as suddenly, all that had been obscured by my course of life, and, hardly knowing what I did, I spoke to him of the power that might reside in prayer.  I said, God had promised to answer prayer.  I dared not allow the skeptical doubt, that came to my own mind, meet the ear of that innocent boy, and told him, more as my mother had often told me than with any thought of impressing a serious subject on his mind, “That the prayers of little boys, even, God would hear.”  I left that night with some simple directions, that were given more to satisfy the mother than from having the slightest hope of eventual recovery, promising to return next day.

In the morning, as I rode to the door, the little boy was playing round with a bright and cheerful countenance, and looked so happy that involuntarily I asked: 

“Is your sister better?”

“Oh, no, Doctor,” he replied, “but she is going to get well.”

“How do you know,” I asked.

“Because I prayed to God” said he, “and he told me she would."

“How did he tell you?”

The little fellow looked at me for an instant, and reverently placing his hand on the region of his heart, said: 

“He told me in my heart.”

Going to the room where my patient was lying, I found no change whatever, but in spite of my own convictions there had sprung up a hope within me.  The medical gentleman with whom I was in consultation came to the room, and as he did, a thought of a very simple remedy I had seen used by an old negro woman, in a very dissimilar case, occurred to my mind. It became so persistently present that I mentioned it to my brother practitioner.  He looked surprised, but merely remarked.  “It can do no harm.”  I applied it.  In two hours we both felt the case was out of danger.

The second day after that, as we rode from the house, my friend asked me how I came to think, of so simple a remedy.

“I think it was that boy’s prayer,” I replied.

“Why, Doctor! you are not so superstitious as to connect that boy’s prayers with his sister’s recovery,” said he.

“Yes, I do,” I replied; “for the life of me I cannot help thinking his prayers were more powerful than our remedies.”

LIGHT GIVEN TO A BLIND CHILD.