A Child's Prayer For Papa.
A drunkard, who had run through his property, returned one night to his
unfurnished house. He entered his empty hall. Anguish was gnawing at his
heart-strings, and language was inadequate to express his agony as he
entered his wife's apartment, and there beheld the victims of his
appetite, his loving wife and a darling child. Morose and sullen, he
seated himself without saying a word; he could not speak; he could not
l
ok up then. The mother said to the little angel at her side, "Come, my
child, it is time to go to bed;" and that little baby, as she was wont,
knelt by her mother's lap and gazing wistfully into the face of her
suffering parent, like a piece of chiseled statuary, slowly repeated her
nightly orison. When she had finished, the child (but four years of age)
said to her mother, "Dear Mother, may I not offer up one more prayer?"
"Yes, yes, my sweet pet, pray;" and she lifted up her tiny hands, closed
her eyes, and prayed: "O God! spare, oh! spare my dear papa!" That
prayer was lifted with electric rapidity to the throne of God. It was
heard on high--it was heard on earth. The responsive "Amen!" burst from
the father's lips, and his heart of stone became a heart of flesh. Wife
and child were both clasped to his bosom, and in penitence he said: "My
child, you have saved your father from the grave of a drunkard. I'll
sign the pledge!"