Ridley
drew her to his bosom, clasped her slender form to his heart and
laid his face, over which tears were flowing, down among the thick
masses of her golden hair.
"Let us pray," fell the sweet, solemn voice of the lady manager on
the deep stillness that followed. All knelt, Mr. Ridley with his arm
drawn tightly around his daughter. Then in tender, earnest
supplication did this Christian woman offer her prayers for help.
"Dear Lord and Saviour," she said, in hushed, pleading tones, "whose
love goes yearning after the lost and straying ones, open the eyes
of this man, one of thy sick and suffering children, that he may see
the tender beauty of thy countenance. Touch his heart, that he may
feel the sweetness of thy love. Draw him to come unto thee, and to
trust and confide in thee as his ever-present and unfailing Friend.
In thee is safety, in thee is peace, and nowhere else."
God could answer this prayer through its influence upon the mind of
him for whom it was offered. It was the ladder on which his soul
climbed upward. The thought of God and of his love and mercy with
which it filled all his consciousness inspired him with hope. He saw
his own utter helplessness, and felt the peril and disaster that
were before him when his frail little vessel of human resolution
again met the fierce storms and angry billows of temptation; and so,
in despairing abandonment of all human strength, he lifted his
thoughts to God and cried out for the help and strength he needed.
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