ph," said Suzanne, "for though my heart is
full enough I have no words."

So Ralph prayed very simply, saying: "Oh, God, Who madest us, hear us,
Thy son and daughter, and bless us. This night our married life begins;
be Thou with us ever in it, and if it should please Thee that we should
have children, let Thy blessing go with them all their days. Oh! God, I
thank Thee that Thou didst save me alive from the sea and lead the feet
of the child who is now my wife to the place where I was starving, and
Suzanne thanks Thee that through the whisperings of a dream her feet
were led thus. Oh! God, as I believe that Thou didst hear my prayer when
as a lost child I knelt dying on the rock, so I believe that Thou dost
hear this the first prayer of our wedded life. We know that all life is
not made up of such joy as Thou hast given us this day, but that it has
many dangers and troubles and losses, therefore we pray Thee to comfort
us in the troubles, to protect us in the dangers, and to give us
consolation in the losses; and most of all we pray Thee that we who love
each other, and whom Thou hast joined together, may be allowed to live
out our lives together, fearing nothing, however great our peril, since
day and night we walk in the shadow of Thy strength, until we pass into
its presence."

This was Ralph's prayer, for he told it to me word by word afterwards
when he lay sick. At the time the answer to it seemed to be a strange
one, an answer to shake the faith out of a man's heart, and yet it was
not lost or mocked at, for the true response came in its season. Nay, it
came week by week and hour by hour, seeing that every day through those
awful years the sword of the Strength they had implored protected those
who prayed, holding them harmless in many a desperate peril to reunite
them at the last. The devil is very strong in this world of ours, or so
it seems to me, who have known much of his ways, so strong that perhaps
God must give place to him at times, for if He rules in heaven, I think
that Satan shares His rule on earth. But in the end it is God who wins,
and never, never, need they fear who acknowledge Him and put their faith
in Him, trying the while to live uprightly and conquer the evil of their
hearts. Well, this is only an old woman's wisdom, though it should not
be laughed at, since it has been taught to her by the experience of a
long and eventful life. Such as it is I hope that it may be of service
to those who tr