From the shoulders his gaze fastened upon the pairs of hands clasped upon the pew backs. Such toil-worn hands. It seemed to him the fingers were great in proportion to the palm, as if they wrought always, and received never. Surely he was growing morbid? And then all the latent pathos in the scene gathered in his heart. All the dumb half unconscious endurance about him pleaded to be made articulate; and as one with unbelieving heart may join in a litany with fervent lips, so Sidney strove to second each petition of the long prayer.
Old Mr. Didymus had long been a spiritual ambassador and he was not unskilled in diplomacy. His prayer was a skilful and not inartistic mingling of adoration, petition, compliment and thanks, adroitly expressed in the words of the Sovereign he addressed, or in phrases filched from His inspired ones. And mid their burning sands, and under their blazing skies, these Eastern followers had not failed to appreciate the blessings of rain.
“O, Thou who in the wilderness did rain down the corn of heaven, that Thy children might eat and be filled; Thou who brought streams out of the rock and caused waters to run down like rivers that their thirst might be quenched, and that they might be preserved alive—Thou of whom it was said of old: ‘Thou visitest the earth and waterest it; Thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water; Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly; Thou settlest the furrows thereof; Thou makest it soft with showers; Thou blessest the springing thereof; Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness’—Hear us! We beseech Thee! Thou causest it to rain on the earth where no man is—on the wilderness wherein is no man—cause it also to rain upon us. Thou causest it to rain alike upon the just and the unjust, let us not hang midway between Thine anger and Thy love. Remember Thy promise to pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. Thou, O God! didst once send ‘a plentiful rain whereby Thou didst confirm Thine inheritance when it was weary’; deny us not a like consolation, we faint beneath the hot frown of Thine anger. Let Thy shadow comfort us! As the thirsty hart panteth for the waterbrooks, we long for Thy blessing. Before man was upon the earth Thou caused a mist to rise up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth; continue Thy mercy to us, who, sharing Adam’s fall are yet heirs to the Redemption. Slay not us in Thine anger, O Lord! Behold, we are athirst! Give Thou us to drink. Are there any vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? Or can the Heaven give showers? Art not Thou He—O Lord our God? Therefore we will wait upon Thee, for Thou hast made all these things. When Elijah strove against the sorcerers of Baal didst Thou not hear him? Like unto him we are cast down before Thee. O grant us our prayer! Show to us also the little cloud like a man’s hand that comforted the land of Ahab. Grant that we, too, by faith shall hear ‘the sound of abundance of rain!’”