Let us pray." As the congregation rose for prayer, Mrs.Murray noticed Peter Ruagh appear from beneath the book-board and quietly slip out by the back door with his hand to his face and the blood streaming between his fingers; and though Ranald was standing up straight and stiff in his place, Mrs.
Murray could read from his rigid look the explanation of Peter's bloody face.

She gave her mind to the prayer with a sore heart, for she had learned enough of those wild, hot-headed youths to know that before Peter Ruagh's face would be healed more blood would have to flow.
The prayer proceeded in its leisurely way, indulging here and there in quiet reverie, or in exultant jubilation over the "attributes," embracing in its worldwide sweep "the interests of the kingdom" far and near, and of that part of humanity included therein present and to come, and buttressing its petitions with theological argument, systematic and unassailable.

Before the close, however, the minister came to deal with the needs of his own people.

Old and young, absent and present, the sick, the weary, the sin-burdened--all were remembered with a warmth of sympathy, with a directness of petition, and with an earnestness of appeal that thrilled and subdued the hearts of all, and made even the boys, who had borne with difficulty the last half-hour of the long prayer, forget their weariness.
The reading of Scripture followed the prayer.

In this the minister excelled.