Earlier text: Charity Exalted Above Gifts and KnowledgeAn Interesting Letter
By Ellen G. White
ELMSHAVEN, SANITARIUM, CAL., To Those Connected with Our Work at Nashville. MY DEAR BRETHREN: You are engaged in an important work, and the Lord calls upon you to take heed to watch unto prayer, to make straight paths for your feet, lest the lame be turned out of the way. Work with an eye single to the glory of God, and with a sense of your individual responsibility. Remember that the Lord alone can make your efforts successful. He is the author and finisher of your faith. In the past you have had the wrestling part of your work to do. You have met with many trials. For your encouragement I am instructed to tell you that the Lord has a deep interest in the work at Nashville, and he will help every one of you if you will co-operate with him. The Lord desires you to move onward and upward. He bids you to be careful to take the right path. “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.” “They shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance.” Do you understand the question that the lawyer put to Christ, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Christ laid upon the lawyer the burden of answering his own question. “What is written in the law? how readest thou?” he asked. “And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor?” Jesus then related an incident that had lately taken place. A certain man, going from Jerusalem to Jericho, was robbed, and left by the roadside, wounded and dying. “And by chance there came down a certain priest that way.” Did he help the one so sorely in need of help?—No; “he passed by on the other side.” “And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.” “Which now of these three,” Christ asked, “thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.” This scripture certainly outlines our work. “Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” When the Lord created trees, he commanded them to bear fruit. And to us Christ says, “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.” Those who receive the truth into good and honest hearts will bear fruit to the glory of God. They will reveal the faith that works by love and purifies the soul. When Jesus would prove to John the Baptist that he was the Messiah, he said to John’s messengers, “Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” The fruit that he bore in his life was his answer to John’s question. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.” These words are to be engraved on the tablets of the heart. In the estimation of the world, it is going to extremes to love God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves; but this is what God requires. He says to us, “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. . . . Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evil doers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. . . . For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.” The plans and methods of God’s workers are to be thoroughly sifted from worldly policy. Their work is to be carried forward with Christlike simplicity. Remember that he who takes the position of a criticiser greatly weakens his own hands. God has not made it the duty of men or of women to find fault with their fellow workers. The world is filled with the same baleful influences that led the Jews to reject Christ, the greatest Teacher the world has ever known. Transgression is developing in a most marked manner. My brethren, avoid selfishness and covetousness; for it is idolatry. This sin is eating into the hearts of those who are determined to be rich. In their pursuit of gain, they place themselves in the most terrible danger. Not a vestige of avarice nor a sign of greed will be seen in the life of a Christian. He will not be guilty of one dishonest act. As Seventh-day Adventists, let us be sure that we bear the sign of God. Is this something that is seen?—No; it is unseen. It is the consecrated mind, placed wholly on the Lord’s side. Those who work in the Southern field, a field so difficult and so poverty-stricken, need constantly to receive grace from on high. They need a power outside of and above themselves. Only by the help of God can they gain true success. Again and again has this been evidenced. The workers who have not lived to themselves, who have put self out of sight, following where Jesus leads the way, practicing self-denial in order to open up the work in new fields, God has made to sit in heavenly places with Christ. Our help is from him. I have not written to you for some time because I have not been able to do so. I have been under a heavy strain. My mind would not let me rest, and at last my strength gave way. I suffered great pain in my head and eyeballs. I have not yet fully recovered, and cannot endure much taxation. I am now sleeping better than I have been, but I cannot find the rest that I need, because I have so much writing to do. I was sitting in my room on Sabbath morning, thinking about the perplexities of the work, and wondering, “What shall I do?” when a little bird hopped on to the window sill, and poured forth such a flood of song that it set my heart free for a time. I believe that the bird was God’s messenger to me. I am determined to put my trust in God. I thank him that I have been so wonderfully sustained. I want to do much more work for him before I lay off my armor. Be strong!
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift.
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift.
Shun not the struggle; face it. ’Tis God’s gift. Be strong!
Say not the days are evil,—who’s to blame?—
And fold the hands and acquiesce. O shame!
Stand up, speak out, and bravely, in God’s name. Be strong!
It matters not how deep intrenched the wrong,
How hard the battle goes, the day, how long,
Faint not, fight on! To-morrow comes the song. Prayers, Answered and Unanswered
By L. D. Santee
ELIJAH prayed four remarkable prayers, which God openly answered. He is held before us as a living example of the power of earnest, insistent prayer. James 5:17, 18. He prayed that it might not rain, and it rained not for three years and six months. He prayed that life might come into the widow’s child, and God gave the life. He prayed again for rain, and rain came abundantly. He prayed for fire from heaven, and God sent it. But a little later, we find him sitting under a juniper tree, praying that he might die, and God denied him his request. Was not God’s denial as much in love as his answers?—Surely it was. God had something better for him. He never died, but was caught up to heaven to live forever. The first condition in the prayer that God answers is faith. “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” Mark 11:24. Again, prayer, to be regarded, must be in accordance with the will of God. In 1 John 5:14, 15, this is made plain: “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” When these conditions are met, how free and full the promise! to “freely give us all things” (Rom. 8:32), to bless “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3), to “supply all your needs.” Phil. 4:19. Do we want more power? Do we want liberty? Do we want the baptism of the Holy Ghost? They are offered full and free in Christ. He has purchased for us all these blessings, and it is his will that we shall have them. Why, then, do many pray for years for these things, and never seem to receive the things for which they pray? Have they exercised the faith spoken of by Mark, “Believe that ye receive them”? If we do this, then follows the promise, “And ye shall have them.” There may be still another cause: David says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” Ps. 66:18. That professed faith that accompanies a life of sin, is only presumption, and cannot claim the promise of God. “He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.” Prov. 28:9. Submission and consecration must precede that living connection that will entitle us to have our prayers answered. “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” 1 John 3:22. We often ask for things that we desire, and they are not granted. In that case, we must acquiesce, and say, God knew best. The prayer of Christ in the garden was not granted. Paul besought the Lord thrice that his “thorn in the flesh” might depart from him; but it was denied. And yet I doubt not that Paul, strong, impulsive, resolute by nature, became more tender, thoughtful of the infirmities of others, and gentle, in his ministry, by reason of the wearing pain caused by his infirmity. When we comply with the conditions accompanying the promises, with the keys of faith and trust we can unlock any room in the treasury of heaven. Christ encourages us to ask largely: “Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” John 16:24. May the Lord help us to ask according to his will, and have our needs supplied. Sufficient Strength
By Edward B. Pusey
HE who hath appointed thee thy task, will proportion it to thy strength, and thy strength to the burden which he lays upon thee. He who maketh the seed grow, thou knowest not how and seest not, will, thou knowest not how, ripen the seed which he hath sown in thy heart, and leaven thee by the secret workings of his good Spirit. Thou mayest not see the change thyself, but he will gradually change thee, make thee another man. Only yield thyself to his molding hand, as clay to the potter, having no wishes of thy own, but seeking in sincerity, however faint, to have his will fulfilled in thee, and he will teach thee what to pray for, and will give thee what he teacheth thee. He will retrace his own image on thee line by line, effacing by his grace and gracious discipline the marks and spots of sin which have defaced it.—Edward B. Pusey. Community Soul-Saving Work
By David Paulson
HAVE you experienced the blessing there is in definite daily study of the Bible, and in endeavoring to make life more pleasant and endurable for at least one human soul each day? If you have not, begin to-day. And then you will appreciate for the first time some of the real sweetness of life, and you will wonder how you ever could have been satisfied to drift along year after year with such a desultory Christian experience. God wants to give each one of us a liberal installment of heaven here below. He wants us to travel toward the eternal city with our faces lightened up with a sweet satisfaction, instead of going along like a crippled band of mourners. But it is not enough for God to want us to have this; for he can no more give it to us without our active co-operation than he can give a crop of corn to a farmer who neglects to either plant or cultivate the same. No drunkard or tobacco slave was ever delivered from his bondage who did not take a positive and determined stand on that question. “Daniel purposed in his heart,” and the Lord made something appear in his life. “If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know.” There are some precious things that we may know in this world that we never shall know till we will to do some other things. “If there is first a willing mind, it is accepted.” We have compassed this mountain of inactivity long enough. Let us launch out into the deep, and as we do so, our souls will catch a heavenly breeze that will waft us toward the heavenly harbor. Looking back at somebody or something, as Peter did, is not only a violation of the Master’s command, “Follow thou me,” but in the very act of doing so we are unfitting ourselves not only for the future kingdom, but also for the present kingdom of service and usefulness. Have you added so much to the sum total of human happiness in your community that your fellow men are thanking God that you live among them? If not, why not? The most important thing is to begin. God cannot guide us while in inactivity, any more than a captain could steer a vessel that was not moving. Resolve to commit to memory, and to make your own, some portion of Scripture each day. We need spiritual food daily just as much as we need physical food. Then allow no day to pass without some one’s being made better or happier because you have lived. Remember that the influence of a cheering smile, a kind word, or a loving deed is immortal; it can no more die than God himself. It will be9 a part of our joy hereafter as well as in this life. Gideon had to cast down the idols in his own home before God could trust him with one of the mightiest victories ever recorded. There may be a lesson in that for us. Has the morning worship hour become distasteful to your children? Perhaps they have some cause for this feeling. Let several mornings of each week be devoted to memorizing portions of Scripture, to relating some of the experiences of the previous day, and to cultivating that genuine family spirit that is now becoming so rare, even in Christian families. Write out some of the most encouraging experiences you meet with in community soul-saving work, for they will serve to inspire some timid ones to begin, just as Paul said the zeal of the Corinthian brethren had provoked very many. 2 Cor. 9:2. The Way We Look at It
By W. E. Haskell
LIFE'S weal or woe is made or marred
So much by what we view.
'Tis well we then should learn to look
At things of worth and true.
And oft in life as much depends
(Whate'er our life may be)
Not only on at what we look,
But on just how we see. In hopeless gloom Doubt still can note,
Where'er life's pathway goes,
Amid the beauty of its flowers,
The thorn with ev'ry rose.
But Faith and Hope the same paths tread,
Yet ne'er can be forlorn.
With all the thorns of life they see
The rose with every thorn. Doubt sees imagined wrong in all,
No good thing to commend;
But criticises and condemns
As foe the truest friend.
But Faith and Love the good behold
Wherever they may go,
See some of Christ in every soul,
A friend in every foe. So all through life Doubt halts to find
The side which is the worse;
With all the blessings from on high
With ev'ry one a curse.
Yet Faith rejoicing goes its way
In spite of what's distressing,
Beholds in all the Father's love,
In ev'ry curse a blessing. Where Doubt finds loss, there Faith sees gain.
Faith's day to Doubt is night.
Doubt's deepest gloom and darkest cloud
Is Faith's shekinah light.
With cross and crown, and bitter, sweet,
And pain, and pleasure too,
Sunshine and cloud and life and death;
'Tis much in how we view. Intemperance and Irreverence
WHAT was it that led to the careless disregard of holy things, on the part of Nadab and Abihu? The thing is indicated in Lev. 10:8-11: “And the Lord spake unto Aaron, saying, Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations: and that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean; and that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses.” The minds of Nadab and Abihu were clouded by the spirit of wine, instead of enlightened by the Spirit of God, and they could not discern the difference between the sacred and the profane. And thus, strictly speaking, intemperance was the sin for which they were destroyed. By intemperance they clouded the glory of God in the true temple of God,—their bodies,—and that led to the error in relation to the service in the figurative sanctuary. They defiled the living temple, and that naturally resulted in debased service in the temporary structure. “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Cor. 10:31. It is by strict temperance in eating and drinking, above all things else, that the true temple of God is to be kept holy, so that he may be glorified in us. Let no one say, then, that it is a matter of no importance what or how we eat and drink. It is of vital importance. How many there are whose brains are stupefied, and whose minds are clouded, solely through wrong habits of eating. They think that they are temperate, because they never drink intoxicating liquor; but they are mistaken; and their error is not a slight one. How important to keep the stream of life always running clear, so that the mind will be bright and active! God’s glory will be revealed, and it will consume and destroy everything that defiles. Shall it be revealed in our glorification, or in our destruction? Which shall it be? —Present Truth. THE fact that people reject the mercy of the Lord is an evidence of their high calling in Christ,—that they are allied to Divinity, in that they can act for themselves. The inanimate earth acts automatically, and cannot choose but to receive and show forth the goodness of the Lord. Even the beasts, which have reason, do not know enough to resist the influence of God’s Spirit, and are all passive to his will. Now it is not the part of wisdom for man to resist God; but the fact that he can refuse to be led by him shows that God has in his great love endowed him with his own attributes; and so, when man is as passive to the will of God as the beasts and the inanimate creation are, that is counted to them for righteousness; it shows that they are worthy to rule with God on his throne. So it is because of “his great love wherewith he loved us,” because he is “rich in mercy,” that God makes us sit together with Christ (Eph. 2:4-6); and it is only this crowning mercy rejected that results in the destruction of anybody. “The earth, O Lord, is full of thy mercy: teach me thy statutes.” —Selected. The Life-Giving Word
By Shaftesbury
THEY now come and tell us that the Bible is effete; that it is worn out; that it can do nothing; and that we must now have some new influence, some new principle, by which to regenerate and guide man. Effete! I should like to know whether it is effete at this moment in India! Is it effete in the islands of the Pacific Ocean? Is it effete in Madagascar? The Bible, so far from being effete, manifests at this moment a greater force—a greater power of giving life—than in any antecedent period of its history. I should like to know who are they that say it is effete. . . . Do the neologists themselves think it effete? If so, why do they pass their nights, why do they sweat and toil over the midnight lamp, for the sole purpose of destroying a book that is so effete, that, if left to itself, it would soon die, or become an object of general contempt. They do not think it effete. They know its power upon the heart and the conscience. They know that if left to itself, that good old Book must work its own way, and what they deny with their lips they confess with their fears. Effete! It is effete as Abraham was effete when he became the father of many nations, when there sprang “of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable.” It is effete as eternity, past, present, and future, is effete. It is effete—and in no other sense—as God himself is effete, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.— Shaftesbury. Christ and Heaven Within the Heart
“WHEN God and Christ and heaven are within, it matters little what is without.” The Common Things of Life
By Alexander McKenzie
JESUS gave a high value to everything which was done in love. I have never heard of any one who appreciated every favor, however small, so much as he. You give a cup of water to a man in his name, and it will appear to your credit in the day of judgment. His memory of love holds every loving thing we do. “Inasmuch” has become the chain by which reluctance is drawn into Christly service. The whole life of Christ was healthful, simple—natural. . . . He was thorough, yet we do not call him an extremist, or think him radical and visionary. He believed in life, and enjoyed it. He was not an ascetic in any degree. He did not seclude himself from men, but walked among them, and sat at their tables. His herald in the wilderness had a life of austerity. This well became him. But Christ began his miracles at a wedding, and saved the marriage feast. His works took a common form. He fed men with bread; he saved the fisher's boat; he gave the palsied man strength to carry home the bed he lay upon. They called him the “friend of publicans and sinners,” and the name pleased him. . . . His parables interpreted common things,— sparrows, grass and flowers, leaves and seed, money and pearls. He gave a new value to all that men handled. There is no great teacher who approaches him in this use of common things, in the hallowing of the ways of men, in the ennobling of our daily life.— Alexander McKenzie, D. D. THE common saying that “every cloud has a silver lining” does not tell all the truth. The truth is that every cloud is full of light, and the thickest, heaviest, darkest clouds contain the most light. Do you doubt it? Your own experience shall convince you. From what clouds do the lightnings come? Is it not from the thick, black, threatening thundercloud? It is now as in the beginning, when God “commanded the light to shine out of darkness.” This is also for our learning, that we might have hope. There will come a day when the earth “shall mourn, and the heavens above be black,” and terror will take possession of the inhabitants of the earth, and it will seem as though God had forsaken and forgotten the earth; but in that day the glory of the Lord shall be revealed as never before, covering the heavens, “as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west” (Matt. 24:27); and then “they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” Verse 30. Let us learn to recognize his goings here, so that when that great and terrible day shall come, we may hail it with joy, saying, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” — Selected. The Prevention of Infantile Diarrheas
ABOUT one fourth of all children born in the civilized world die before they reach five years of age. About one half of all deaths among infants are due to diarrheal diseases. These diseases prevail almost exclusively during the hot months of summer, consequently they are known as the summer diarrheas. They are confined to children that are fed wholly or in part on cow’s milk. Failure of the mother to nurse her child during the first year of life greatly increases the danger of illness from the summer diarrheas. The summer diarrheas of infancy are cases of milk poisoning. Cow’s milk becomes poisonous on account of germs which get in it and multiply, producing highly poisonous substances. The prevention of the summer diarrheas and of the fearful mortality due to them consists in giving attention to the milk with which children are fed. If the cow giving the milk be healthy, and germs be kept out of the milk after it is drawn, it will not cause diarrhea. The following rules should be observed:— 1. The cows should be healthy, and the milk of any animal which seems indisposed should not be mixed with that from the perfectly healthy animals. 2. Cows must not be fed swill, or the refuse of breweries or glucose factories, or any other fermented food. 3. Cows must not be allowed to drink stagnant water; but must have free access to pure, fresh water. 4. Cows must not be heated nor worried before being milked. 5. The pasture must be free from noxious weeds, and the barn and yard must be kept clean. 6. The udder should always be washed before the milking. 7. The hands of the milker should be clean. 8. The milk should be received in a clean, scalded pail. 9. The milk must be at once thoroughly cooled. This is best done by placing the milk can in a tank of cold spring water or ice water, the water being of the same depth as the milk in the can. It would be well if the water in the tank could be kept flowing; indeed, this will be necessary unless ice water is used. The tank should be thoroughly cleaned every day to prevent bad odors. The can should remain uncovered during the cooling, and the milk should be gently stirred. The temperature should be reduced to 60° F. within an hour. The can should remain in the cool water until ready for delivery. 10. In summer, when ready for delivery, the top should be placed on the can, and a cloth wet in cold water should be spread over the can, or refrigerator cans may be used; at no season should the milk be frozen, but no buyer should receive milk which has a temperature higher than 65° F. 11. After the milk has been received by the consumer, it should be kept in a perfectly clean place, free from dust, at a temperature not above 50° F. Milk should not be allowed to stand uncovered, even for a short time, in sleeping or living rooms. In many houses in the country and villages and occasionally in the cities the drain from the refrigerator leads into a cesspool or kitchen drain. This is highly dangerous; there should be no connection between the refrigerator and any receptacle of filth. The refrigerator waste should discharge in the open air. 12. The only vessels in which milk should be kept are tin, glass, or porcelain. After using the vessel, it should be scalded, and then, if possible, exposed to the air. 13. When ordinary market milk is used in feeding infants, it should be sterilized. 14. The details of sterilization can be learned only by practical demonstration, and the family physician should be asked for instruction. Unless sterilization is scientifically carried out, it is worthless. 15. A milk which has already an abundant germ growth in it cannot be made a safe food for infants by sterilization; because, while the heat employed in sterilization kills the germs, it does not destroy the poisons already generated by the germs. 16. After sterilization, the bottles of milk should be kept at a temperature below 50° F. When one is needed for the child, the bottle with its contents should be warmed by being held for a few minutes in water until it is brought near the temperature of the body. 17. Should an infant develop a diarrhea, discontinue the administration of milk in any form, and immediately seek the advice of a competent physician. 18. The family physician alone is competent to decide what modification should be made in cow’s milk to render it a suitable food for a given child. The Sterilization of Milk for Infants
For those who cannot conveniently consult a physician, the following details for the sterilization of milk are given: it should be understood that only fresh milk, obtained according to the rules already given, is fit food for infants, even after sterilization. Obtain one-half dozen or more nursing bottles with suitable wire holder, kept by druggists. Place the bottles in a kettle of soft water, in which a heaping teaspoonful of the bicarbonate of soda has been dissolved in order to render it fully alkaline, and then boil the bottles for half an hour. After cooling the bottles, fill with the milk, close the mouths with clean, absorbent cotton, and place the bottles in the wire holder, and set them in a kettle of water, so filled that the water in the kettle is but little below the level of the milk in the bottles; then bring the water in the kettle to the boiling point, and keep at this temperature for fifteen minutes; then keep the wire holder with the bottles in an ice chest, removing the bottles one at a time as needed to feed the child. Warm this bottle by holding it a few minutes in lukewarm water, then remove the cotton, and draw a rubber nipple over the mouth of the bottle. Nipples with long rubber tubes attached should never be used. It is impossible to cleanse them, and they have undoubtedly caused the death of many children. The nipples when not in use should be kept in a clean glass jar containing lime water, and each nipple should be dipped in boiling water just before it is attached to the nursing bottle. When the child has taken its food from a bottle, any milk remaining in the bottle should be thrown away, and the bottle boiled before it is again filled with milk. Enough bottles should be prepared each morning to last the child for twenty-four hours, one bottle for each feeding; any milk left over at the end of the twenty-four hours should be thrown away. Remember (1) that milk which has already become bad cannot by any means be rendered a fit food for infants: (2) that after sterilization, the milk must be kept on ice, at a temperature not above 50° F. until needed by the child; (3) that tube nipples must not be used under any circumstances, and that the nipples must be kept clean, and each one dipped in boiling water before it is used. The fingers with which the nipple is handled must be clean.—Document Issued by Michigan State Board of Health, July, 1902. “Just as a mother, with sweet, pious face,
Yearns toward her little children from her seat,
Gives one a kiss, another an embrace,
Takes this upon her knees, that on her feet;
And while from actions, looks, complaints, pretenses,
She learns their feelings, and their various will,
To this a look, to that a word dispenses,
And, whether stern or smiling, loves them still;
So Providence for us, high, infinite,
Makes our necessities its watchful task,
Hearkens to all our prayers, helps all our wants;
And e’en if it denies what seems our right,
Either denies because ’twould have us ask,
Or seems but to deny, and in denying grants.” We hear much nowadays of the “drudgery” of woman’s work. The “new,” or emancipated, woman looks with pitying eyes upon her sister on the farm, with her long routine of tasks, her labor stretching often from sun to sun. “Away with such drudgery!” she says, and goes on her chosen way, which is patterned as closely as possible after the masculine career. Such a woman the other day set me thinking. I went to the Standard Dictionary, and there I read:— “Drudgery,—hard and constant work in any menial or dull occupation; service marked by weariness and spiritless routine.” The definition suggested many things. Somehow, I was reminded of a story taken years ago from an English paper, and preserved in one of my many scrapbook volumes. It is entitled “The Happiest Man in London,” and tells of a couple living in a single room, with nothing but the most necessary furniture. For twenty-five years the wife had been paralyzed, and all this time her husband had been her nurse, protector, support, and, most of all, her lover. She could scarcely speak, and her only strength of expression lay in her eyes, looking straight out, clear and shining. In response to a new doctor’s question, this hero of a man told in the simplest and most sincere way how he lived:— “I get up early of a morning, you see, sir,” said Temple, as our hero was named, “and make our breakfast and attend to her. Then before I start for work,—I’m in an engineer’s employ,—I just boards her up in bed so she can’t fall out. I’m back at dinner hour, and we have it together. Then, when I have work, my evening soon passes. There’s usually a bit of cooking to be done, and washing up, and the room to see to. An invalid must have things clean about her; it isn’t agreeable to just lie and look at anything dirty. I like Lucy to keep bright—but there! she always is; and if occasionally she gets down, I soon cheer her up, don’t I, Lucy? I and Sunny together. Sunny—that’s our bullfinch. He’s asleep now, covered up, you see, and I won’t disturb him. But by day he’s that lively! He chirps and talks away to Lucy; he’s company for her, Sunny is, bless his little heart!” And the story tells how the tired man, coming home from his work, goes cheerily about the cares of his little household; how he eats the tasteless meat from which “Lucy’s” beef tea had been made—enjoying the meat the better the poorer it was, because he knew thereby that the tea was good; and how he did some washings to save pennies for luxuries for his dear invalid. It describes how the old man got ready for the night. He was obliged to retire early whenever possible. He brought warm water to the bedside, and washed the hands and face of his wife, and tied on her white nightcap. (In the morning he would perform her toilet again, and do her hair for her.) Then he arranged on the chair, so as to be within reach, a candle in a tin candlestick, a glass of water, and a biscuit. After that he fetched a large prayer book and the Bible, read the psalms and the second lesson for the evening, and afterward prayed. He thanked God for the many mercies vouchsafed to them that day,—for food, and power and opportunity to work, and for a home. He remembered those who had none of these blessings, and begged that they might receive them. He commended himself and his wife to God’s keeping throughout the night. There came a day when the friendly young doctor announced that he was going away for a month, and would bring “another friend” back with him; and this is the response he had from these two who had not found life an easy thing:— “God bless you, sir! You couldn’t tell me anything that would make me more rejoiced. The dear young lady! We seem to know her now, already, but we shall really see her, I’m sure?” “Oh, yes!” answered the doctor, “and you’ll love her, Mr. Temple, everybody does.” “Lucy, did you hear? The doctor is going to bring the dear young lady.” The woman unclosed her eyes. She looked at the doctor, and her drawn face seemed flooded with sweetness. Her lips moved. “She says, ‘God bless you, sir;’ Lucy says, ‘God bless you;’ and when she says it, she means it. Ah, we know what a blessed thing married life can be, don’t we, Lucy? It’s a solemn act, sir, to take a woman to be your wife. But when the blessing of God rests upon a union, marriage is a sacrament that brings you an added grace. Your faith grows, and your love grows, and your nature deepens. You learn many things. I’m old, and I’ve lived, but the part of life that has helped me to the best knowledge is—just that. I took Lucy, I said I’d love her, comfort her, honor her, and keep her in sickness and in health. I’ve tried, and we’ve been happy. Sir, love does it all. You’ll want to comfort her, you’ll have to honor her, and if sickness comes, you’ll love her all the more.” From the bed came a strange sound. It was something between a laugh and a sob, and the doctor, turning, looked away again. Her husband’s words had moved the wife to tears, but her face was radiant with the joy in the upturned eyes. Temple laid his hands on hers—hers which could give no answering pressure. “Sir,” he said, “I can’t wish you better happiness than I’ve had. I wish you as much. And I take it I’m about the happiest man in London.” Was it drudgery—the toiling all day for daily bread, the work in the house, and the preparation of the meals; the care of a helpless, almost speechless, invalid for twenty-five years; life literally bounded by the shop and the single room he called home; no outside companionship or relaxation? And still he was “the happiest man in London!” Love is the sweetener and uplifter of daily toil. Love transforms what would else be drudgery into glad, joy-giving ministry.—The House Keeper.