Yes, he said, I did sometimes so pray with my boys, and that too, as you
may believe, with much affection, for you must think that my four boys
were all very dear to me. And it is my firm belief that all that good
man's boys will come right yet: Matthew and Joseph and James and Samuel
and all. 'With much affection.' I like that. I have unbounded faith in
those prayers, both for and with, in which there is much affection. It
is want of affection, and want of imagination, that shipwrecks so many of
our prayers. But this man's prayers had both these elements of sure
success in them, and they must come at last to harbour. At that one word
'with much affection,' this man's closet door flies open and I see the
old pilgrim first alone, and then with his arms round his eldest son's
neck, and both father and son weeping together till they are ashamed to
appear at supper till they have washed their faces and got their most
smiling and everyday looks put on again. You just wait and see if
Matthew and all the four boys down to the last do not escape into the
Celestial City before the gate is shut.
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