couldn't be given some part, in spite of his extreme age. To be sure, it
was many years since anybody had asked him to take part in any service
whatsoever, even a funeral service--for which, as is well understood,
a man retains efficiency long after he has ceased to be of use in the
pulpit, no matter how devastating may be the weather. But that fact did
not seem to bear upon the present situation.

A number of people, among them Miss Jane Pollock, were beginning to feel
more than a little indignant about it, and so lost the most of Sewall's
prayer, which was a good one, and not out of the prayer-book, though
there were phrases in it which suggested that source, as was quite
natural. The city man meant to do it all, then. Doubtless he thought
nobody from the country knew how to do more than to pronounce the
benediction. Doubtless that was to be Elder Blake's insignificant
part--to pronounce the----

Miss Jane Pollock looked up quickly. She had been staring steadily at
the back of Maria Hill's mink collar, in front of her, through the
closing sentences of the prayer. But what was this? Elder Blake had
risen and was coming forward. Was he going to read a hymn? But he had no
book. And he had taken off his spectacles. He could see better, as was
known, without his spectacles, when looking at a distance.

William Sewall's prayer was not ended. He could no longer be heard by
the people, but in his seat, behind the drooping figure of the old man,
he was asking things of the Lord as it seemed to him he had never asked
anything before. Could His poor, feeble, "superannuated" old servant
ever speak the message that needed to be spoken that night? William
Sewall felt more than ever that he himself could not have done it.
Could Ebenezer Blake?

"_Make him strong, O God,--make him strong_," requested William Sewall,
fervently. Then, forgetting even a likeness to prayer-book phrase, he
added, with fists unconsciously tight-clenched, in the language of the
athletic field where a few years back he himself had taken part in many
a hard-fought battle-- "_Help him to buck up!_"

VIII

They talk about it yet, in North Estabrook, though it happened a year
ago. Nobody knew how it was that from a frail old man with a trembling
voice, which, in its first sentences, the people back of the middle of
the church could hardly hear, there came to stand before them a fiery
messenger from the skies. But such was the miracle--for it seem