Until she was seven years of age the life of Helen Keller, the Boston girl who was deaf and dumb and blind, was an absolute blank; nothing could go into that mind because the ears and eyes were closed to the outer world.  Then by that great process which has been discovered, by which the blind see, and the deaf hear, and the mute speak, that girl’s soul became opened, and they began to put in little bits of knowledge, and bit by bit they began to educate her.  They reserved her religious instruction for Phillips Brooks.  After some years, when she was twelve years old, they took her to him and he began to talk to her through the young lady who had been the means of opening her senses, and who could communicate with her by the exceedingly delicate process of touch.  He began to tell her about God and what He had done, and how He loved men, and what He is to us.  The child listened very intelligently, and finally said: 

“Mr. Brooks, I knew all that before, but I didn’t know His name.”

How often we have felt something within us impelling us to do something which we would not have conceived of by ourselves, or enabling us to do something which we could not have done alone.  “It is God which worketh in you.”  This great simple fact

          EXPLAINS MANY OF THE MYSTERIES OF LIFE,

and takes away the fear which we would otherwise have in meeting the difficulties which lie before us.

Two Americans who were crossing the Atlantic met on Sunday night to sing hymns in the cabin.  As they sang the hymn, “Jesus, Lover of my Soul,” one of the Americans heard an exceedingly rich and beautiful voice behind him.  He looked around, and although he did not know the face he thought that he recognized the voice.  So when the music ceased he turned around and asked the man if he had not been in the Civil war.  The man replied that he had been a Confederate soldier.  “Were you at such a place on such a night?” asked the first.  “Yes,” he said, “and a curious thing happened that night; this hymn recalled it to my mind.  I was on sentry duty on the edge of a wood.  It was a dark night and very cold, and I was a little frightened because the enemy were supposed to be very near at hand.  I felt very homesick and miserable, and about midnight, when everything was very still, I was beginning to feel very weary and thought that I would comfort myself by praying and singing a hymn.  I remember singing this hymn,

    ’All my trust on Thee is stayed,
      All my help from Thee I bring,
    Cover my defenceless head
      With the shadow of Thy wing.’

After I had sung those words a strange peace came down upon me, and through the long night I remember having felt no more fear.”

“Now,” said the other man, “listen to my story.  I was a Union soldier, and was in the wood that night with a party of scouts.  I saw you standing up, although I didn’t see your face, and my men had their rifles focused upon you waiting the word to fire, but when you sang out,