"It ain't my way to pray before a audience," he began quietly and with his gray head bowed, although his words could be distinctly heard, "and I don't know as I feel called to do any special repentin' this evenin', seein' as I got up on this here mourning bench by accident and with no idea but to set and listen fer a while. Still I reckon I got sins enough to be sorry 'bout most any time the chance comes." Ambrose then seemed to be reflecting for a moment, and it is just possible that during this pause the thin ghost of a smile played like heat lightning about the end of his sensitive nose, although his expression continued perfectly reverent. "I wouldn't be a mite surprised though, Lord," he went on in almost a conversational tone, "ef my neighbours wasn't better able to confess my sins fer me than I am fer myself, bein's as we've all got such special talents fer our neighbours' motes. The trouble is I'm none too sure one man can _precisely_ understand another man's, Heavenly Father, you've so many and various ways of revealin' yourself to your children. Course I know, Lord, I've loved fine apparel too dear and smokin' and the outdoors when mebbe I should 'a' been workin' in, and mebbe I've laughed now and then over things folks think should 'a' been cried over. And I've had my hours of distrustin' and repinin' and forgettin' it's God's privilege to run His world 'cordin' to His idees, not mine. But, O Lord, what's the use mentionin' things that ain't cheerful even to you? I'm plumb sorry fer all I've done that's bad 'thout goin' into further details." And here again Uncle Ambrose paused; however, not one of his strained and over-eager listeners had any delusion that his prayer was finished. He simply had been forgetting them and now remembered. Then he lifted his head and straightened his shoulders, and what he saw through the shining oak ceiling of the new brick church no one shall ever know. "Ef any one here present is waitin' to hear me say I'm sorry fer any lovin' I've ever done of man--or woman (course I know you ain't expectin' it, Lord)--then I am obleeged to state he or she'll be disappointed. Women is the nearest things I've known on this earth to the angels, and I ain't been disobedient to the heavenly vision." Up to this moment Uncle Ambrose's voice had been low and evenly modulated, but now it changed like the deeper tones of an organ until it came to be the most wonderful music in the world--a voice that was able perfectly to express the richest things of the spirit. "But, Lord, ef ever I'd wronged a woman, I'd not be askin' forgiveness of you; I'd just ask that it be meted out to me in like proportion as it has been meted out to the woman, forever and ever. Amen."