OTHER'S PRAYER.

A physician, who for many years practiced his profession in the State of
California, was called once to see the child of Mr. Doak, of Calveras
County, living on the road between San Andreas and Stockton, and not far
from the mining town of Campo Seco, or Dry Camp. He says: The patient
was a little girl about ten years of age, bright and intelligent and one
of twins, the other being a boy, equally bright and well-disposed. The
primary symptoms had indicated inflammation of the stomach, which the
attending physician had hopelessly combated, and finally, when by
metastasis it attacked the brain, with other unfavorable symptoms, he
was inclined to abandon the case in despair.

It was at this juncture I was called in. The symptoms were exceedingly
unfavorable, and my own opinion coincided with my professional
brother's. However, we determined to go to work. A day and night of
incessant watching, and the state of the patient caused us both to feel
the case hopeless, and we only continued our attendance at the earnest
solicitation of the child's mother. The anxious, care-worn and restless
sorrow of the little brother, his deep grief as he saw his sister given
over to the power of the King of Terrors, had attracted our attention.
He would creep up to the bedside of his sister silently, with pale and
tearful face, controlling his emotion with great effort, and then steal
away again and weep bitterly. With a vague, indefinite idea of
comforting the little fellow, I took him to my knee, and was about to
utter some platitude, when the little fellow, looking me in the face,
his own the very picture of grief, burst out with--

"Oh, Doctor, must sister die?"

"Yes," I replied, "but,"--

Before I could go farther he again interrupted me: "Oh, Doctor, is there
nothing, nothing that will save her? Can nobody, nobody save my sister?"

For an instant the teachings of a tender and pious mother flashed over
my mind. They had been long neglected, were almost forgotten.
California, in those days, was not well calculated to fasten more deeply
on the mind home teachings. There were very few whose religious training
survived the ordeal, and for a long time I had hardly thought of prayer.
But the question brought out with the vividness of a flash of lightning,
and as suddenly, all that had been obscured by my course of life, and,
hardly knowing what I did, I spoke to him of the power that might reside
in prayer. I said, Go