It was a bitter night in December; the snow lay upon the ground. "The
horses and coachman are asleep long ago. Nonsense, my dear; wait until
morning."
"Something tells me we ought to go now," she pleaded, with tears in her
eyes.
Mr. C------ yielded; he even caught the infection of her excitement, and
while she called the servants and heaped the carriage with bundles of
bedding, clothes and baskets of provisions, he inclosed a hundred-dollar
bill in a blank envelope.
In the meantime the guardians of the orphans had on that day spent their
last dollar. "We had," said the matron, "actually nothing to give the
children for breakfast."
The two women went to their knees that night, God only knows with what
meaning in their cries for daily bread.
While they were yet praying, a carriage drove to the door, and without a
word, the clothes, provisions and money were handed out by an unknown
lady inside.
They knew God had sent her in answer to their prayers.
If we all could bring our absolute, simple faith in Him into our daily
lives, what a solid foundation we would lay under all change of fortune,
disease, or of circumstance! We should have then a house indeed founded
on a rock.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"TEARS AND KISSES."
A writer in the _Sabbath School Times_ tells a pathetic story of that
language of signs which is common all over the world: "Two little
Italians accompanied a man with a harp out of the city along the country
roads, skirted by fields and woods, and here and there was a farmhouse
by the way.
"He played and they sang at every door. Their voices were sweet, and the
words in an unknown tongue.
"The old ladies came out of the door, and held their hands above their
eyes to see what it all meant, and from behind them peered the flaxen
heads of timid children.
"Not knowing how to make themselves understood, the little children,
when they had finished singing, shyly held out their little brown hands
or their aprons to get anything that might be given them and take it to
the dark man out at the gate, who stood ready to receive it.
"One day the dark harpist went to sleep, and the little boy and girl,
becoming tired of waiting for him, went off to a cottage under the hill
an began to sing under the window.
"They sang as sweetly as the voices of birds. Presently the blinds were
opened wide, and they saw by the window a fair lady on a sick bed
regarding them.
"Her eyes shone with a feverish light, and the color of her cheeks was
like a beautiful peach.
"She smiled, and asked them if their feet were tired. They said a few
words softly in their own tongue.
"She said, 'Are the green fields not better than your city?'
"They shook their heads.
"She asked them, 'Have you a mother?'
"They looked perplexed.
"She said, 'What do you think while you walk along the country roads?'
"They thought she asked for another song, so eager was the face, and
they sang at once a song full of sweetness and pity, so sweet the tears
came into her eyes.
"_That_ was a language they had learned; so they sang one sweeter still.
"At this she kissed her hand and waved it to them. Their beautiful faces
kindled, and like a flash the timid hands waved back a kiss.
"She pointed upward to the sky, and sent a kiss up thither.
"At this they sank upon their knees and also pointed thither, as much as
asking, 'Do you also know the good God?'
"A lady leaning by the window, said, 'So tears and kisses belt the
earth, and make the whole world kin.' And the sick one added, 'And God
is over all.'"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *