“God of justice,” he said, “Thou knowest how hard it is for us, and Thou wilt be fair to us.  We have seen no visions; we have never heard the voice of Thy Son, of whom those tales, so dear to us, have come down the ages; we have to fight on in much darkness of spirit and of mind, both from the ignorance we can not help, and from the fault we could have helped; we inherit blindness from the error of our fathers; and when fear, or the dread of shame, or the pains of death, come upon us, we are ready to despair, and cry out that there is no God, or, if there be, He has forgotten His children.  There are times when the darkness closes about us like a wall, and Thou appearest nowhere, either in our hearts, or in the outer universe; we can not tell whether the things we seemed to do in Thy name, were not mere hypocrisies, and our very life is but a gulf of darkness.  We cry aloud, and our despair is as a fire in our bones to make us cry; but to all our crying and listening, there seems neither hearing nor answer in the boundless waste.  Thou who knowest Thyself God, who knowest Thyself that for which we groan, Thou whom Jesus called Father, we appeal to Thee, not as we imagine Thee, but as Thou seest Thyself, as Jesus knows Thee, to Thy very self we cry—­help us, O Cause of us!  O Thou from whom alone we are this weakness, through whom alone we can become strength, help us—­be our Father.  We ask for nothing beyond what Thy Son has told us to ask.  We beg for no signs or wonders, but for Thy breath upon our souls, Thy spirit in our hearts.  We pray for no cloven tongues of fire—­for no mighty rousing of brain or imagination; but we do, with all our power of prayer, pray for Thy spirit; we do not even pray to know that it is given to us; let us, if so it pleases Thee, remain in doubt of the gift for years to come—­but lead us thereby.  Knowing ourselves only as poor and feeble, aware only of ordinary and common movements of mind and soul, may we yet be possessed by the spirit of God, led by His will in ours.  For all things in a man, even those that seem to him the commonest and least uplifted, are the creation of Thy heart, and by the lowly doors of our wavering judgment, dull imagination, luke-warm love, and palsied will, Thou canst enter and glorify all.  Give us patience because our hope is in Thee, not in ourselves.  Work Thy will in us, and our prayers are ended.  Amen.”

They rose.  The curate said he would call again in the evening, bade them good-by, and went.  Mr. Drake turned to his daughter and said—­

“Dorothy, that’s not the way I have been used to pray or hear people pray; nevertheless the young man seemed to speak very straight up to God.  It appears to me there was another spirit there with his.  I will humble myself before the Lord.  Who knows but he may lift me up!”

“What can my father mean by saying that perhaps God will lift him up?” said Dorothy to herself when she was alone.  “It seems to me if I only knew God was anywhere, I should want no other lifting up.  I should then be lifted up above every thing forever.”