The Aftermath of Prayer
By Charles L. White
IN a group of friends, a few days ago, a Christian woman said: “You have spoken of Geneva. I never hear the word without recalling two happy weeks I passed there in my girlhood, when my sisters and I were abroad for a year with our parents. “My father insisted that we should maintain our custom of morning prayers, and during the entire time, although we were living in hotels, we always observed this custom. It was often difficult to do so, and I remember one occasion in Geneva when we were all dressed for a trip on the lake, and felt that an exception might be made that morning. Indeed, one of the older girls remarked that some one was moving about in an adjoining room, and it seemed a bit strange to have family devotions under such conditions. This, however, produced no effect upon father, who quietly read a chapter and, as usual, offered prayer. “In looking back upon that trip I have often been glad that our custom at home was not neglected abroad, and that father’s noble principle conquered. I especially feel so because about a year ago I met a brilliant woman in New York in the company of several distinguished persons whose lives were devoted to the promotion of many noble enterprises. She said to me, ‘I conclude from a remark you have just made that you are one of the girls in an American family that spent a certain two weeks in Geneva many years ago.’ “I told her we were there at that time, and gave her my father’s full name. She replied, ‘Yes, it is the very family.’ She then drew me apart and said: ‘I was spending that year in study in Geneva, and lived at the same hotel in which your family rested. In fact, I had a room separated by only a thin partition from the suite your family occupied, and I could hear the conversation of your happy household. What impressed me most, however, was the chapter your father read and the prayer he offered that morning when you girls urged him to give up for once the custom of morning prayers. Ah! but that prayer and that chapter saved me from entering a path that would have ended in suicide, for I was about to make an evil choice which would have blasted my life in a few months. As I listened, I dared not close my ears to the warning that came to me through your father’s voice. It was like the touch of a vanished hand from an earlier Christian training, and it held me to purity and happiness.’ “She ceased speaking. I hid my face in my hands for an instant. When I had wiped away the tears, I was alone. At a little distance I could see the brilliant woman in animated conversation with others. I do not know where she lives. I made no attempt to discover who she was. I do not recall her name. But I know that through my father’s obedience in setting up an altar to his God in a strange land she was saved to an abounding life.” — Charles L. White in the Standard