"One with God is a majority," as the preacher man says. And Labour ministers found themselves offering a variation on the theme as they stared into the long night in which, to the very end, it seemed Wales might just say No.
Forget the abysmal turnout across the principality. Forget all that media nonsense about the need for a decisive mandate to give legitimacy to the proposed Welsh assembly. Forget Mr Blair's need for popular acclaim as he continued his crusade to bring power closer to the people. Any majority would do.
Faced with the possibility of defeat, the pro-devolution coalition of unionists and nationalists had started to unravel before our eyes. Plaid Cymru and Liberal Democrat spokesmen had their excuses at the ready. And, while never once conceding, they prepared to lay the blame at Labour's door.
The nationalists had always feared Welsh people would be under-whelmed by a package which denied them the legislative and tax-varying powers to be given the Scottish parliament. The Lib Dems had never believed a referendum necessary, since Labour had won the general election on a manifesto with devolution and constitutional reform at its very heart.
But the masters of spin had prepared their spokesmen well. Welsh Minister, Peter Hain, wasn't perturbed by the fact that half the electorate had declined to vote. They'd had a mountain to climb, he repeated mantra-like, recalling that Wales had voted 4 to 1 against devolution in 1979. Indeed, listening to Mr Hain it was almost possible to believe that any majority for the Yes campaign would exceed his private expectations. Almost.
For as the ministers, with their freshly restored Liberal and nationalist allies, declared themselves delighted with victory - by a margin of just 0.6% - it was clear that New Labour's air of invincibility had been very badly shaken.
When he appeared before the cameras outside Downing Street, the Prime Minister had the look of a man celebrating narrow escape rather than historic triumph. Barely 12 hours before, as commentators made light of early No votes from the border region, one expert had spoken of Mr Blair as the man who seemed able, for the time being at least, to walk on water. But no more. Wales had left Mr Blair walking on constitutional eggshells.
Mr Michael Ancram, the Tories' constitutional affairs spokesman, purred contentedly that they would reserve their position and expect the government to draw some lesson from the fact that just one in four Welsh voters had been prepared to back its constitutional blueprint. In the excitement of the referendum campaigns - and, in particular, in the heady aftermath of Scotland's decisive double Yes - it had been all but forgotten that, in the run up to the general election, Labour's constitutional plans had been widely considered half-baked. The early attempt to flesh out plans for devolving to the English regions ended in confusion and the appearance of retreat. But Labour's massive Commons majority, and Scotland's decisive confirmation of her settled will, fostered a new atmosphere in which the government's apparent confidence - that the English regions would simply demand to follow the Scottish and Welsh examples, and so themselves answer the famous West Lothian question - appeared widely shared.
It would be easy, of course, to exaggerate this setback for Mr Blair. He still won. His Commons majority will overcome any Tory tendency to try and challenge the Welsh verdict. And his programme could receive an enormous boost if, as expected, Londoners next May back plans for a new strategic authority and an elected mayor for the capital. That said, the Welsh assembly in its formative stages will have to prove itself to a sceptical public. The refusal of the Welsh to follow Scotland's example may underline an NOP poll showing around 40% of people in England, Scotland and Wales fearful that devolution could lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom. The West Lothian question still stands, and if it is to be answered by English regionalism, the government will have to create the demand for it.
It will have to do so, moreover, in the light of a Welsh warning that even this government is not free to do as it likes. Mr Blair has shown himself adept at reading and responding to the public mood. And nowhere will that warning be more keenly felt, analysed and considered than in the gathering cabinet discussions about the issue beside which these others pale into insignificance - the European Single Currency.