“Not in your own strength, but in God’s,” she said reverently.  “You have tried your own strength many times, but it has failed as often.  But his strength never fails.”

She lifted her finger and pointed to the text on the wall, “Without me ye can do nothing,” then added:  “But in him we can do all things.  Trusting in yourself, my friend, you will go forth from here to an unequal combat, but trusting in him your victory is assured.  You shall go among lions and they will have no power to harm you, and stand in the very furnace flame of temptation without even the smell of fire being left upon your garments.”

“Ah, ma’am, you are doubtless right in what you say,” Mr. Ridley answered, all the enthusiasm dying out of his countenance.  But I am not a religious man.  I have never trusted in God.”

“That is no reason why you should not trust in him now,” she answered, quickly.  “All other hope for you is vain, but in God there is safety.  Will you not go to him now?”

There came a quick, nervous rap upon the door; then it was flung open, and Ethel, with a cry of “Oh, father, my father, my father!” sprang across the room and threw herself into Mr. Ridley’s arms.

With an answering cry of “Oh, Ethel, my child, my child!” Mr. Ridley drew her to his bosom, clasped her slender form to his heart and laid his face, over which tears were flowing, down among the thick masses of her golden hair.

“Let us pray,” fell the sweet, solemn voice of the lady manager on the deep stillness that followed.  All knelt, Mr. Ridley with his arm drawn tightly around his daughter.  Then in tender, earnest supplication did this Christian woman offer her prayers for help.

“Dear Lord and Saviour,” she said, in hushed, pleading tones, “whose love goes yearning after the lost and straying ones, open the eyes of this man, one of thy sick and suffering children, that he may see the tender beauty of thy countenance.  Touch his heart, that he may feel the sweetness of thy love.  Draw him to come unto thee, and to trust and confide in thee as his ever-present and unfailing Friend.  In thee is safety, in thee is peace, and nowhere else.”

God could answer this prayer through its influence upon the mind of him for whom it was offered.  It was the ladder on which his soul climbed upward.  The thought of God and of his love and mercy with which it filled all his consciousness inspired him with hope.  He saw his own utter helplessness, and felt the peril and disaster that were before him when his frail little vessel of human resolution again met the fierce storms and angry billows of temptation; and so, in despairing abandonment of all human strength, he lifted his thoughts to God and cried out for the help and strength he needed.