Years ago a little boy passing by the open door where his mother was kneeling in prayer, caught, as he passed, a part of a sentence. It contained his name, “My little David.”
This incident touched him at the time, although not so deeply as afterward. Through the long years that followed he heard the echo in his heart of his name, uttered in tenderest love and affection, in his mother’s prayer. He knew, of course, she prayed for him every day, but the casual hearing of his name-his own name, David, came back to his memory, and grew more tender as the years went on.
He grew to manhood, went to. America, and began life, in a great city. With the sobriety and honesty, which one might expect in a boy trained as he had been, the young Scotchman began to make his way upward.
In time he married, and by middle age he had become a prosperous, and well-known banker. Yet, in all those years he had never forgotten the incident of his mother mentioning his name in her prayer, and now it came back to him in such overwhelming power, that there and then, he went down on his knees and yielded himself wholly to the Saviour.
One evening he wrote some verses and handed them to his wife. She sent them to a friend, who sent them to a gospel preacher. He read them in public, and they found their way into print, without any’ name attached to them.
Such is the history of the hymn in which are found the following lines: ―
“And as in quiet eventide,
I passed her kneeling there,
Just that one word, my name, I heard,
My name in mother’s prayer,
That kneeling form, those folded hands,
Have vanished into dust;
But still with me for aye shall be
The memory of her trust.
And when I cross the other side
And meet her over there,
We’ll praise the Lord Who blessed that word,
My name in mother’s prayer.”