At last some voice suggested prayer. We had no chaplain, and few of us were professedly religious, but the very thought of prayer seemed to bring relief, and was eagerly accepted. We knelt around the bare prison-walls, as so many prisoners have done before, and tried to draw near to God. We felt as if already cut off from the world. Captain Fry first prayed aloud. His voice was broken by sobs, but he did not now pray for the first time, and we felt our faith leaning on his as he poured out strong supplications for that Almighty help we so sorely needed. He prayed that God's love might be revealed to us, and that we might be able to trust the Saviour even on the gallows. When he ceased another took up the thread of petition. After him, another and another followed, until all but two had prayed aloud, and even these were kneeling and sobbing with the rest. As the twilight deepened, our devotional exercises grew more solemn. In the lonely shadow of coming night, with eternity thus tangibly open before us, and standing on its very brink, we prayed with inconceivable fervor. These exercises continued far into the night, and wrought their effect deeply in our hearts. From that night I recognized God's right to my allegiance. I did accept Christ as my Saviour, and determined to confess His name before men, whether I lived or died. This resolution in my own case--and I doubt not the same result was produced in other hearts--restored the fortitude that had been so rudely shaken, and I felt nerved for any fate. Strangely enough, with this resignation to the worst came the glimmer of a hope, unfelt before, that possibly life might yet be spared. This hour wrought a complete and permanent change in the routine of our prison-life. Games, sports, and stories were no longer our leading pursuits. The cards we had been accustomed to play for pastime only--an old greasy pack obtained from the compassion of some soldier on guard--were thrown out of the window, and that game given up forever. Each morning and each evening we had a prayer-meeting,--not simply a single prayer, but all praying in turn. We asked for and obtained a Bible from the jailer, and read a chapter or more as part of our exercises, and sang hymns, so that our meetings became as much like those we had witnessed in the distant but never forgotten days of freedom as we could make them. There was wonderful pathos in the very rudeness of the singing, for our sweetest voices were silent in death. The remark was often made, "If Ross was only here to lead the singing!" The one who read the Bible lesson was considered the leader of the meeting, and, for a time, we took this position by turns. In place of "Do they miss me at Home?" we sang the more inspiring and helpful "Jesus, Lover of my Soul," and "Rock of Ages." The jailer, the guards, and all who came near the prison noticed the great change.