Then a terrible loneliness, as regards the present, and blank despair in regard to the future, laid hold of Diana. She seemed to have lost all. She cared no longer for her stately home, her position in the county, all the many advantages for which she had ventured so bold a stake. She had now voluntarily surrendered them; and here she was, back in the hospital, in nurse's uniform, in her small simply furnished room, working hard, in order to escape from leisure. Here she was, in the very position to avoid which she had married David; and, here she was, having married David, learnt to love him, and then—lost him.

Her gift of gold seemed worth little or nothing.

Her gift of frankincense had ended in heart-broken failure.

What was left now, save myrrh—David's gift of myrrh, and her anguish in the fact that he offered it?

During this period of blank despair, Diana went one afternoon to a service in a place where many earnest hearts gathered each week for praise, prayer, and Bible study. She went to please a friend, without having personally any special expectation of profit or of enjoyment.

The proceedings opened with a hymn—a very short hymn of three verses, which Diana had never before heard. Yet those words, in their inspired simplicity, were to mean more to her than anything had ever as yet meant in her whole life. Before the audience rose to sing, she had time to read the three verses through.

"Jesus, stand among us,
In Thy risen power;
Let this time of worship
Be a hallowed hour.

"Breathe Thy Holy Spirit
Into every heart;
Bid the fears and sorrows,
From each soul depart.

"Thus, with quickened footsteps,
We'll pursue our way;
Watching for the dawning
Of the eternal day."

Who can gauge the power of an inspired hymn of prayer? As the simple melody rose and fell, sung by hundreds of believing, expectant hearts, Diana became conscious of an unseen Presence in the midst, overshadowing the personality of the minister, just as in the noble monument to Phillips Brooks, outside his church in the beautiful city of Boston, the mighty tender figure of his Master, standing behind him, overshadows the sculptured form of the great preacher.

The Presence of the risen Christ was there; the Power of the risen Christ, then and there, laid hold upon Diana.

"Jesus, stand among us,
In Thy risen power—"

pleaded a great assemblage of believing hearts; and, in very deed, He stood among them; and He drew near in tenderness to the one lonely soul who, more than all others, needed Him.

None other human words reached Diana during that "hour of worship." He, Who stood in the midst, dealt with her Himself, in the secret of her own spirit-chamber.

She saw the happenings of the past in a new light.

First of all, Self had reigned supreme.