It was then only, when before God, with his wife by his side, and his family around him, that the old man became articulate.

He would scarcely have been so then, and would have floundered greatly in the marshes of his mental chaos, but for the stepping-stones of certain theological forms and phrases, which were of endless service to him in that they helped him to utter what in him was far better, and so realise more to himself his own feelings.

Those forms and phrases would have shocked any devout Christian who had not been brought up in the same school; but they did him little harm, for he saw only the good that was in them, and indeed did not understand them save in so far as they worded that lifting up of the heart after which he was ever striving.
By the time the prayer was over, Gibbie was fast asleep again.

What it all meant he had not an idea; and the sound lulled him--a service often so rendered in lieu of that intended.

When he woke next, from the aching of his stripes, the cottage was dark.