Surely, when first he raised his head in Eden, Satan might have worn such a countenance as this.

It cranes itself forward till the long, thin neck seems to stretch; then suddenly a stir or a movement alarms it, and back the face draws like the crest of a startled snake.

Back it draws, and the door closes again.
The chapter is read, the prayer is prayed, and strange may seem the answer to that prayer, an answer to shake out faith from the hearts of men; men who are impatient, who do not know that as the light takes long in travelling from a distant star, so the answer from the Throne to the supplication of trust may be long in coming.

It may not come to-day or to-morrow.

It may not come in this generation or this century; the prayer of to-day may receive its crown when the children's children of the lips that uttered it have in their turn vanished in the dust.