This incident, though so natural, shocked him. He arrested such evident
grief at once and very soon he stood up to pray. So prayed the gray
fathers of the world, Terah and Abram, Lot and Jacob; and John stood at
the open window with his troubled face lifted to the starlit sky. His
soul was seeking earnestly that depth in our nature where the divine and
human are one, for when the brain is stupefied by the inevitable and we
know not what to abandon and what to defend, that is the sanctuary where
we shall find help for every hour of need.
What words, wonderful and secret, were there spoken it is not well to
inquire. They were for John's wounded heart alone, and though he came
from that communion weeping, it was
--as a child that cries,
But crying, knows his Father near.
Nothing was different but he sat down hushed and strengthened, and in
his heart and on his lips the most triumphant words a man or woman can
utter, _"Thy Will be done!"_ Then there was a great peace. He had cast
all his sorrow upon God and _left it with God_.
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