In the gloom of the sunless November afternoon the ordinary solemnity of the old church seemed palpably increased by an atmosphere of unusual peace and mystery that gave sorrow its solace in a sense of the latent and inevitable sadness of all mortal life.

From one or two of the confessional boxes there arose a confused murmur of voices, and under one of the galleries, where the great fantastic shadows were rather increased than diminished by a flare of gaslight, a nun was drilling a bevy of demure little maidens in their catechism. And every now and again the subdued chords of the organ rose into a joyous peal and thrilled and dominated the drowsy, monotonous sibilant murmur of prayer and clear treble responses of the children. Then in the hush the muffled sounds of praying and moving women seemed to intensify the stillness that filled the dome and nave, and a sense of isolation in the midst of life crept over the spirit of one touched with the human pathos of the scene.

Occasionally, however, one of the low, narrow doors of the main entrance was held open for a few moments, and the rumble of the traffic in the crowded streets without surged in with a music of its own, and the nearness of the whirlpool of human destiny swept through the minds of many who would fain put the world out of their thoughts and lives and find a refuge for all sorrow in the love of God. Unburdened hearts thus suddenly invaded by the chill mockery of reality sought to drown the reawakened memory of life’s human web of fate in a fresh abandonment to all their deepest sorrows and unutterable hopes in the silence of God’s House. Here they would forget the fierce turmoil of the world, and acknowledge to God all the anguish of thoughts and soul that none dare reveal to their fellows. But there is no sanctuary in the world for the soul of man so sacred that the irony of life cannot enter.

At the chancel steps the form of a woman was bent in an attitude of prostrate prayer—in an oblivious abandonment of everything but the passion in her soul, so entirely unusual in a conventional religious assembly in our time, that several eyes were directed toward her. A gray and venerable father who was passing through the church observed her, and hesitated for a moment whether he should go and say a word of comfort to her. But as a sob shook her frame he murmured to himself, “She is in the hands of God and He will restore,” and with a little sigh passed on. This was a very poor parish. The good father was used to pitiable scenes and the prayers of those whose only friend in all the world was God—and even so the priest had to admit that life was sad.

The woman was oblivious or indifferent to all that passed about her. Her face was buried in her hands, clenched together in anguish, and the sobs that rose and choked her utterance and swept conscious thought into paroxysms of inarticulate despair, showed how intensely she suffered and hoped and doubted. There was no serenity, no calm acquiescence in her prayer—it was all revolt and demand, and in the presence of the Host at God’s altar she doubted.

She had purposely withdrawn from the little groups of women gathered together in their devotions, and when the door opened and the noise of the street clashed for a moment with the harmony of prayer and the low tide of flutey music from the organ loft, she shrank closer to the altar railing. The stir of life without struck a chill into her heart, and all the fervor of her hopes died within her.For a few moments her lips were compressed in the silent anguish that benumbs the mind and racks the body in every nerve and fibre. She almost collapsed inertly on the steps. Then the loathing of life that had possessed her as she had threaded her way through the narrow, sordid streets returned with all its dread insistence of inconquerable morbid thought. “So long as men are what they are,” she said under her breath, despairingly, “God cannot be good,” and she drew herself up with dry eyes and haggard face, and mechanically crossing herself as she gained her feet, she turned to leave the church without another word.

She tottered slowly and half blindly down the aisle and only reached the darkened vestibule with a great effort and several stops on the way. Putting her hand to the heavy, leathern door, she found herself too feeble to move it. She leaned wearily against the wainscot and waited. No one came. Then, moved with the petulance of passionate despair, she prayed in her heart, “Oh, God, let me out of thy House since thou wilt not answer my prayers.”

It was now twilight, and she recalled the flaunting horrors and misery of the squalid streets of the quarter, and a feeling of revulsion swept over her. After all, she and her husband had only God in all the world to look to for help and comfort under the burdens of life; for even the knowledge of misery and sorrow does not teach men love and pity. And in the cruel world she only dared to be human with God.

She steadied herself against the wall, her eyes dimmed with tears, and her soul filled with a great longing to pour out her repentance, and again ask the boon that haunted her troubled dreams as well as her waking thoughts.

She stumbled into one of the nearest pews, and falling upon her knees she repeated mentally, with her busy thoughts otherwhere, one of the prayers of the regular service, and then a great cry arose in her soul, and she wailed the prayer that monopolized her heart and mind day and night, and in or out of church was always being prayed in all her life.

“Oh, Lord God, we are utterly alone and bereft in the world, save as Thy presence is near to comfort us. I ask and pray for only one thing—for the life and strength of my poor husband, who is as Thou knowest wasting at death’s door, and in our misery I can do nothing to save him, nothing to alleviate his sufferings. Oh, God, I have given Thee this day, to make my special prayer—and a day is so much to the poor, whose bread must be won somehow every day. Oh, dear Lord, in mercy hear me. There is no pity, no mercy, no compassion among men, for they live only for gold though they bring their prayers to Thee. Only Thou, the living truth and God art left to our hope, and I am here at thy altar to claim the gift of life Thou hast promised in giving life. Abandoned and despised, denied and starved by men, I come to Thee, in our dire extremity, and ask this boon of life of Thy omnipotent arm.”

And so she prayed with all the fervor of her overwrought spirit, until the dusk reminded her of the many hours she had been absent from the sick man in the attic they called home.

As she was about to cross her own threshold, a hand was laid upon her shoulder in the darkness, and a voice filled with a love and tenderness she had never heard in any human speech, said, softly:

“What ails thee?”

She could see nothing, but her soul was grown desperate, and she answered, without fear, “I am troubled for my husband, for his life is ebbing away, and the miseries we suffer. I pray only for him, but God does not answer my prayers.”

“And do you pray only for your husband?”

“Yes, we are all alone in the world, and there are none who care for us, or do for us, or pity us. We have only God.”“Then pray for all the world and all mankind, and perhaps God will hear your prayer.”

Then the sorrowing soul knew that she too was not without sin, and that out of the House of God she had met the angel of the Lord.

Walter Blackburn Harte.