hath known my name.

"He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in
trouble. I will deliver him and honor him.

"With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation."

During this most exquisite pronunciamento of Divine favor Eugene was
sitting with his eyes closed, his thoughts wandering over all his recent
ills. For the first time in years, he was trying to fix his mind upon an
all-wise, omnipresent, omnipotent generosity. It was hard and he could
not reconcile the beauty of this expression of Divine favor with the
nature of the world as he knew it. What was the use of saying, "They
shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a
stone," when he had seen Angela and himself suffering so much recently?
Wasn't he dwelling in the secret place of the Most High when he was
alive? How could one get out of it? Still---- "Because he hath set his
love on me--therefore will I deliver him." Was that the answer? Was
Angela's love set on him? Was his own? Might not all their woes have
sprung from that?

"He shall call upon me and I shall answer. I will deliver him in
trouble. I will deliver him and honor him."

Had he ever really called on _Him_? Had Angela? Hadn't they been left in
the slough of their own despond? Still Angela was not suited to him. Why
did not God straighten that out? He didn't want to live with her.

He wandered through this philosophically, critically, until Mrs. Johns
stopped. What, he asked himself, if, in spite of all his doubts, this
seeming clamor and reality and pain and care were an illusion? Angela
was suffering. So were many other people. How could this thing be true?
Did not these facts exclude the possibility of illusion? Could they
possibly be a part of it?

"Now we are going to try to realize that we are God's perfect children,"
she said, stopping and looking at him. "We think we are so big and
strong and real. We are real enough, but only as a thought in God--that
is all. No harm can happen to us there--no evil can come nigh us. For
God is infinite, all power, all life. Truth, Love, over all, and all."

She closed her eyes and began, as she said, to try to realize for him
the perfectness of his spirit in God. Eugene sat there trying to think
of the Lord's prayer, but in reality thinking of the room, the cheap
prints, the homely furniture, her ugliness, the curiousness of his being
there. He, Eugene Witla, being prayed for! What would Angel