They are not there to read the way Leon repeated them, for he put a short pause after the first name, and he glanced toward our father: "Jesus Christ, the SAME, yesterday, and to-day, and forever!" Sure as you live my mother's shoulders shook.
"Twelve." Suddenly Leon seemed to be forsaken.

He surely shrank in size and appeared abused.
"When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up," he announced, and looked as happy over the ending as he had seemed forlorn at the beginning.
"Thirteen." "The Lord is on my side; I will not fear; what can man do unto me ?" inquired Leon of every one in the church.

Then he soberly made a bow and walked to his seat.
Father's voice broke that silence.

"Let us kneel in prayer," he said.
He took a step forward, knelt, laid his hands on the altar, closed his eyes and turned his face upward.
"Our Heavenly Father, we come before Thee in a trying situation," he said.

"Thy word of truth has been spoken to us by a thoughtless boy, whether in a spirit of helpfulness or of jest, Thou knowest.