Occasionally, however, one of the low, narrow doors of the main entrance was held open for a few moments, and the rumble of the traffic in the crowded streets without surged in with a music of its own, and the nearness of the whirlpool of human destiny swept through the minds of many who would fain put the world out of their thoughts and lives and find a refuge for all sorrow in the love of God. Unburdened hearts thus suddenly invaded by the chill mockery of reality sought to drown the reawakened memory of life’s human web of fate in a fresh abandonment to all their deepest sorrows and unutterable hopes in the silence of God’s House. Here they would forget the fierce turmoil of the world, and acknowledge to God all the anguish of thoughts and soul that none dare reveal to their fellows. But there is no sanctuary in the world for the soul of man so sacred that the irony of life cannot enter. At the chancel steps the form of a woman was bent in an attitude of prostrate prayer--in an oblivious abandonment of everything but the passion in her soul, so entirely unusual in a conventional religious assembly in our time, that several eyes were directed toward her. A gray and venerable father who was passing through the church observed her, and hesitated for a moment whether he should go and say a word of comfort to her. But as a sob shook her frame he murmured to himself, “She is in the hands of God and He will restore,” and with a little sigh passed on. This was a very poor parish. The good father was used to pitiable scenes and the prayers of those whose only friend in all the world was God--and even so the priest had to admit that life was sad. The woman was oblivious or indifferent to all that passed about her. Her face was buried in her hands, clenched together in anguish, and the sobs that rose and choked her utterance and swept conscious thought into paroxysms of inarticulate despair, showed how intensely she suffered and hoped and doubted. There was no serenity, no calm acquiescence in her prayer--it was all revolt and demand, and in the presence of the Host at God’s altar she doubted. She had purposely withdrawn from the little groups of women gathered together in their devotions, and when the door opened and the noise of the street clashed for a moment with the harmony of prayer and the low tide of flutey music from the organ loft, she shrank closer to the altar railing. The stir of life without struck a chill into her heart, and all the fervor of her hopes died within her.