Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/264

 now, after due deliberation, held was obviously divine disapproval of what had been done, and as such it was, when rightly viewed, as much a prayer-answering miracle as would have been any other result.

And thus the whole business was about to be finally disposed of, and indeed with the expression of no small satisfaction to most of the body, when an event occurred which altered entirely the aspect of the whole case. An old woman had confessed to having prayed for the proscribed hospitals. What the poor woman actually did was to emit an involuntary ejaculation on behalf of an only daughter, who lay at the time in one of the hospitals of the proscribed series. But this was, in effect, of course, a prayer for all in that particular hospital; and, if for one hospital, then for all in the proscribed list. Indeed, the poor old creature herself at last saw all this as clearly almost as the zealous brethren who had suggested it all to her.

Well, then, here was truly a grand marvel! The poor woman's daughter indeed died, as one more unit of the current hospital averages. But there remained the amazing fact, and not more amazing than beneficially humbling to our natural pride, that the mere casual ejaculation of this one poor old woman had been of equal, nay, even of fractionally greater, efficacy than the united supplications, disciplined and marshalled forth, from the whole Church!