If then, everything in this world happens because something else happened a thousand years ago or yesterday, and the result could not possibly be different from what it is, why besiege Heaven with prayers?

The answer is simple.  Prayer is an emotional exercise; an endeavor to bring the will into a state of harmony with the Divine Will; a rest and a composure that gives strength by putting us in position to partake of the strength of the Universal.  The man who prays today is as a result stronger tomorrow, and thus is prayer answered.  By right thinking does the race grow.  An act is only a crystallized thought; and this young girl’s little book was designed as a help to right thinking.  The things it taught are so simple that no man need go to a theological seminary to learn them:  the Silence will tell him all if he will but listen and incline his heart.  Love had indeed made Harriet’s spirit free.  And to no woman can love mean so much as to one who is aware that she is physically deficient.  Homely women are apt to make the better wives, and in all my earth-pilgrimage I never saw a more devoted love—­a diviner tenderness—­than that which exists between a man of my acquaintance, sound in every sense and splendid in physique, and his wife, who has been blind from her birth.  For weeks after I first met this couple there rang in my ears that expression of Victor Hugo’s, “To be blind and to be loved—­what happier fate!”

But Harriet’s lover was poor in purse and his family was likewise poor, and the thrifty Martineaus vigorously opposed the mating.  In fact, Harriet’s mother hooted at it and spoke of it with scorn; and Harriet answered not back, but hid her love away in her heart—­biding the time when her lover should make for himself a name and a place, and have money withal to command the respect of even mill-owners.

So the days passed, and the months went by, and three years counted themselves with the eternity that lies behind.  Harriet’s lover had indeed proved himself worthy.  He had worked his way through college, had been graduated at the Divinity School, and his high reputation for character and his ability as a speaker won for him at once a position to which many older than he aspired.  He became the pastor of the Unitarian Church at Manchester—­and this was no small matter!

Now Norwich, where the Martineaus lived, is a long way from Manchester, where Harriet’s lover preached, or it was then, in stagecoach times.  It cost money, too, to send letters.

And there was quite an interval once when Harriet sent several letters, and anxiously looked for one; but none arrived.

Then word came that the brilliant young preacher was ill; he wished to see his betrothed.  She started to go to him, but her parents opposed such an unprecedented thing.  She hesitated, deferred her visit—­intending soon to go at all hazards—­hoping all the while to hear better news.

Word came that Harriet’s lover was dead.  Soon after this the Martineau mills, through various foolish speculations, got into a bad way.  Harriet’s father found himself with more debts than he could pay; his endeavors to buffet the storm broke his health—­he gave up hope, languished and died.