The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 28 August 1913, Page 5

The Storyteller

HOW THEIR PRAYERS WERE ANSWERED This is a serious story. People who do not likeserious stories need not read it. It is a true story, and yet it is fiction—which is a paradox. It is true in the sense that it contains a great truth, one of the most consoling of all truths— that our prayers are always answered, not always in the way we look for when we pray, for in our ignorance we often ask for a stone and God in His mercy sends us bread: but no prayer to God or His saints offered in faith is ever rejected. It may be refused, refused at the time, but granted afterwards; refused in the way it was intended to be answered, but granted in a far better way. In this sense then this story is true, and yet as we said before it is fiction. In the month of May, at a certain church in London a certain man and a certain girl heard a sermon at High Mass, preached by a certain priest. The name of the man was John Murray, the name of the girl Mary Luttrell; the names of the preacher and the church are immaterial. The sermon was on prayer and the gist of it is contained in the above remarks, but the theme was elaborated and the truth it contained brought out in the most convincing manner with great oratorical skill. * The preacher was an elderly man indeed, it is doubtful if a young man could have done equal justice to the subject. It needs the experience of a lifetime to speak so surely, so consolingly, so confidently as this priest did on the efficacy of prayer.

The young may believe it, but the old know it. The preacher knew by long experience, by much prayer, :w by much watching, in great faith, in great hope, in yi great patience, that what he was saying was true, and : he had the power to impress this truth on some at least among his hearers. His own great faith seemed to raise and support the weak and wavering faith of his audience, as the great fluted columns of the aisles supported the vaulted roof of the church. Some there were who felt that they could lean on his confidence, rest on his assurance and allow their souls to be raised , to Heaven by his fervor. He spoke as though he had no more doubt that ' God was in His Heaven, and that our Lady, and all His saints were with Him, than that he was standing < in the pulpit and the congregation sitting before him ; the unseen was as real to him as the seen. He was, as he said in the course of his sermon, more certain that their prayers and praises were heard in Heaven than that a cablegram sent that day would reach Australia, or a message by wireless telegraphy be signalled from ■ ship to ship on the ocean; yet no sane person doubted either of these things. Many present were much struck by the sermon, and among others the two people just mentioned Murray, who was a young stockbroker, and Mary Lilt- | trell who was a convert of only a few years standing. | Her father was the rector of a country parish; he had * a large family of whom Mary was the eldest, and when she came home from a convent in Belgium at which she had been educated, and announced her intention, of becoming a Catholic, a not unlikely sequel to having been brought up by nuns, he was very angry, and refused his consent unless she left home and earned her own living as a governess. This course Mary elected ; to pursue. She loved her home dearly, but she loved ‘the home of the saints’ more! She was now living, as governess with a Catholic family in London, , at whose house John Murray was a frequent visitor, Mary was plain; she was tall and thin and graceful but undeniably plain-featured, and Mary loved and admired beauty, she coveted beauty: her sisters were all pretty and she envied them she was clever and strong and healthy, amiable and sweet-tempered, endowed with a warm, heart and a great, capacity for loving but all these gifts she would have exchanged willingly for the fatal gift of beauty. Yet there was one thing that not in her worst and most foolish moments would she have bartered for beauty, and that was her faith. She was silly' no doubt to desire so v passionately to be beautiful, but she was not so mad as to be willing if it were possible to risk her salvation for it. As she listened to the sermon she made up her mind that she would try if it was really true, that no prayer made in faith was ever left unanswered, but sooner or later granted in some way. Only by a miracle could the prayer she meant to pray be granted, as she thought, for only by a miracle could her plain face be changed to a beautiful one. " ] When Mass was finished, Mary went to the altar of the Sacred Heart to pray for beauty : to no one else, ! not even to our Blessed Lady could she tell this secret desire of her heart, at any rate at this early stage of her conversion. She was ashamed to write her request 1 aiid put it into the box that stood by the altar for petitions, but she knelt there for a quarter of an hour, praying with all her soul that He Who was the most beautiful of the sons of men, and Who was also Almighty God, would make her fair and comely. John Murray was also deeply impressed by the sermon he had come to Mass that morning a prey to distracting thoughts. He had recently embarked on a financial scheme which if successful would make his fortune, but which if it failed would probably cripple him from a monetary point of view for some time; for he- had invested all his available capital in it. It .was a great risk that he was running, but the prize if he were successful was so large that he had determined to make the venture. It was undoubtedly a great speculation, but he was an unmarried man with no one dependent upon him, and he had persuaded himself that he was justified in his action. If he succeeded he would

rest content with his gains, he thought, but for this once he would let . himself go. So he now stood to win a large fortune, or to . lose All his savings, and meanwhile he was in a fever of excitement. - As' he listened to the sermon, something in him was kindled by the. preacher’s words ; perhaps it was faith, perhaps it was a fixed determination to leave no possible stone unturned to gain this prize, and after Mass he went to our Lady’s altar and prayed, as he had never prayed before in his life, for the success of his scheme. ", - The anxiety he was enduring, the vacillation between hope and fear which every rise and fall of the stock in which he was so deeply interested caused him to feel, was telling on his physical strength, and reacting on his spiritual nature, as our bodies are. wont to act and react on our souls, and weigh them down or raise them up without our suspecting their influence. John Murray, though usually a calm, collected, and not particularly fervent worshipper, was to-day in a highly emotional frame of mind as he knelt before our Lady’s statue and repeated the Memorare with passionate fervor, almost commanding her to grant his request. ‘ You can, you will, you must grant my petition. I believe that never was it known that you refused to help your clients. Hear my prayer, oh gracious Virgin, and grant me the success I covet.’ - John’s prayer was not so long as Mary Luttrell’s, but after he had finished he strolled slowly round the church, and presently recognised her graceful figure bent in deep and humble supplication at the feet of the Sacred Heart. His prayer had been like the storming of a citadel, tumultuous, vehement, violent; Mary’s was calmer, deeper, gentler, humbler her form was motionless, she was absorbed in devotion. John stood a little way off, watching her, and when at last she rose from her knees and came towards him, her usually pale cheeks were flushed, her eyes shone with a new light, and John as he looked at her experienced a new feeling overwhelming his troubled spirit, a feeling that was at once pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, blended inextricably together. He knew intuitively that the sermon had moved her as it had moved him to ask some great favor; he wondered what her request had been; he longed to know not only what it was, but if it would be granted. He longed greatly to find this out, for he argued if Mary’s prayer was granted, his, too, might be; and as he walked home with her, as he frequently did, he summoned up courage after they had discussed the sermon to say: • ‘ Will you tell me if your prayer is granted?’ Mary Luttrell, remembering what her prayer had been, flushed crimson, and woman-like answered with another question. . ‘What prayer?’ she said almost guiltily. ‘ The prayer you were making at the Sacred Heart this morning.’ Mary hung her head. ‘ It was a foolish prayer, because only by a miracle could it be granted, and we ought not to expect miracles.’ ‘ Perhaps not, but I am quite sure it was a better prayer than mine. But anyhow, will you tell me when it is granted, if it ever is?’ ‘ Yes, I promise I will,’ said Mary, smiling, and her smile was very sweet, so sweet, in John’s opinion, that he began to think there were other things in the world better worth desiring than financial success. ‘ Well, I prayed for something, too, this morning, something I want desperately; I will tell you what it was,’ said John; and he told her just as they reached the house of her employer. Some days later John Murray heard that his speculation had failed, and he had lost every penny he had invested. He raged and stormed, blamed himself for his folly in risking so much on an uncertainty, made things decidedly hot for his unfortunate clerks, and then remembered that .he would probably see Mary Luttrell the next day, which was Sunday, at Mass. He would certainly tell her that his prayer had been

refused, and somehow he derived great consolation-in his loss in anticipating her sympathy. ; u ' The next morning he saw Mary in her usual . place when he entered the church, and after Mass was over he hovered near her when she went to the altar of thf Sacred Heart, for perseverance in prayer was part of Mary’s scheme of life. : • Her attitude, at any rate outwardly, was less humble than on the previous Sunday; she knelt upright with her little handssuch pretty hands, John thought themclasped and held out towards the statue; her eyes were raised and once or twice that smile of hers played round her moving lips. " John waited till she rose and then went up to her saying impulsively : ••• ‘Your prayer has been-granted?’ - ■ %£'■ Mary blushed deeply as she answered this random shot. ‘No, indeed, it has not.’ ‘ I am sure it has. Tell me what it was?’ ‘I can’t possibly. But how about your scheme Has it turned out well? Have you heard yet?' Yes, I have heard, worse, luck". I have lost every penny I invested, but somehow I don’t seem to care so very much about it, after all. I did just at first, but I have found something else worth more than a fortune—even so large a one as I stood to win,’ said John, as they passed into the street. ‘ Have you ? Tell me if you are more successful this time,’ said Mary, as she joined her pupils, who had accompanied her this morning and were waiting outside the church for her. Again John raged and stormed, but this time inwardly, at the inconvenience of Mary’s pupils electing to come to church with her, instead of going as usual with their parents as, in John’s opinion, they ought always'to do. The only opportunity he had of seeing Mary alone was on her way home from church. If he went to luncheon or dinner at the house where she was living, the family was of course always present, and he had no opportunity of any private, conversation with her. He was beginning to feel more and more every day that Mary. Luttrell was the supreme need of his life. - ■-'v' 7 ’:'.' The next Sunday after Mass John went .again to our Lady’s altar, and knelt there for some time. As ho knelt a. light broke over him, and he began to understand what had puzzled him at first when he heard that he had lost his money, and remembered the prayer he had offered about it a few weeks ago at Mary’s shrine. ‘ Holy Mother,’ he said, ‘ I asked jmu for gold which perisheth, like the sordid wretch I am, and you refused to give it be, but instead you opened my blind eyes and showed me there was a treasure that all the gold in the world could never purchase close to my elbow, a treasure that but for you I might never have found. Oh, Mother of Mercy, despise not my petition, but in your mercy get me that treasure.’ A moment after, when he rose from his knees he was startled to see Mary Luttrell standing before him, coming to kneel at our Lady’s altar. She started as she recognised John, for she had not expected to see him, thinking he had left the church. During the week she had pondered over their last meeting and wondered what he could have meant. What was this thing worth more than a fortune that he had recently found? Very often she asked herself this question, and snubbed it and herself „by sadly thinking once or twice her vanity had suggested a . possible answer but she thought that an impossible solution. How could John Murray or any one else care for a plain girl like her? The impossible solution, however, recurred more than once to her, and she felt that it was one that would change this workaday world for her into a garden of Eden. - ; And so she came to Mary’s shrine, and John seeing her went forward and took hold of her Hand, and there was a look in his eyes that told Mary her prayer was granted, for she knew, as every woman knows when she sees that look, that to him at least she was beautiful. ‘Mary,’ said John, ‘my prayer is granted. I asked otir Lady for you and she had sent you to me.’ And Mary understood that she had guessed the

right solution to the problem John had propounded to her. , ' ' ! ■ 'John,’ she said, ‘my prayer, too, is granted, but I will never, never tell you what it was.’ And thus these two young people found that prayer is answered in more ways than one; that He Who is Infinite Wisdom takes our poor, paltry, foolish wishes as we lay them at His Feet, and burns them in the crucible of His Love, and give them back to us so changed that we hardly recognise them, but increased in value a thousandfold. And perhaps this is not such a very serious story after all.—Darley Dale in th q English Messenger.