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January 20, 1909. THE PRESBYTERIA
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Going to her little room she got some clean white
paper and made a little cap like a trained nurse's. She
put this on her head, and a clean, white apron on the
kitchen chair.
She boiled the water and made the tea, toasted the
bread, and scraped the beef. Then she fixed them all
in a tray as daintily as she could, put on her white
apron, and took them in.
"See mother!" she said, proudly, "I am your little
trained nurse, and I bought all these things on your
tray myself! I am going to coov for fudge Seav. and
earn three dollars every week; so your nurse is going
to have something nice for you every single day. Isn't
it lovely, mother?"
That night, as Katie came in from washing the supper
dishes, she overheard her mother say to Mr. Osborne
:
"Oh, John, aren't we proud of our Katie?" And her
little tired arms and back felt rested.
THE LOVING CUP.
By Julia H. Johnston.
"Oh, it is so hard, so hard!"
"Yes, dear girl, I know it is." There was a tender
pressure of the older woman's hand, and then a bit of
sympathetic silence.
uIf T Imrl rlnriP OnvtVlinrr frv Krinnr An f Mo ;iln?co ,?,If It
its long laying-aside," said Louise, "perhaps I might
understand it better?at least the way of it, but I cannot
find any connection between the trouble and any
cause."
"We get into sad tangles when we meddle too much
with second causes, Louise," was the response. "Not
a sparrow falls without our Father. It is better to rest
on that."
"If I could only see and feel the love in it," sighed
the young girl.
"It is there, just the same," responded her comforter.
"I will lend you one of my treasures, Louise, which has
snnt-pn mmWinnlu nm nn.l r.o-1-^r.c c 1
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help in it. I will send it when I go home."
"Thank you, and thank you for not trying, as some
do, to make me think that it is not hard to be taken out
of all my active life and laid aside in this way. Saying
so does not make it so. It helps me so much more to
have you say that it really is not easy, but that you
are sorry and will try to help me."
"I have passed this way myself, and that makes a
difference, perhaps," was the kind rejoinder, and then
there was a bright and tender good-bye.
Before long the package came, and, when eagerly
opened, the young girl's astonished eyes beheld an oldtime
loving cup, quaintly chased, and somewhat battered,
an heirloom coming down from some remote ancestor
of \fr? nirt/Nn
"I wonder what is the interpretation thereof," exclaimed'
Louise, looking in the package for some message,
her thoughts pleasantly diverted meanwhile from
her pain and weariness. Presently she found a tiny
scrap of a note, overlooked at- first, but it said only:
"A loving cup, dear, is for close friends, and it has
,N OF THE SOUTH. 13
two handles. Think it out, and it will help you more."
Here was something to employ the girl's keen brain,
and in the hours of enforced quiet, she pondered it
over, recurring to all she knew of the ancient custom
when this silver cup was first used. Friends drank
from it in token of love and loyalty, and it had two
handles. Yes, to be sure?and?and, each friend took
hold of a handle in lifting it to the lips of the one who
drank. Was not that it?
But how could this help her? Was her friend's prayer
that the loving Lord would suggest the comfort, a connecting
link now? Was another link- the rrJt-rc u-u:*
... ...v ^ti i o uauu U1
turning the leaves of a wall-roll, morning by morning,
and repeating the choice words while dressing? Surely
the Spirit who brings holy things to remembrance suggested
this bit of verse learned long before from the
page of the roll:
"Or shun not thou the loving cup,
Nor tremble at its hue.
There is no bitter in the bowl
But Jesus drank it, too."
"Jesus holds the other handle!" ijhe murmured to
herself. The revelation came like an inspiration.* "It
is a loving cup, though it is bitter." He tasted it
1 t-- i -
in au, aiiu iic Knows. A healing leaf sweetened the waters
of Marah. Cannot anything be borne, if there is
love in it?"
When Mrs. Barton came again, Louise lifted a bright,
though thoughtful face.
"Thank you," she said sin)ply, pointing to the silver
cup. "It is just as hard as ever; I mean the thing itself,
the cup, is just the same, but now I see why it has two
handles, and I can see the Hand on one of them. It
helps me so."
Mrs. Barton's face was glad. "I know how your eyes
have been opened," she said. "Babies must have the
cup held for them, but we who are older must do something
for ourselves. You have taken the other handle
yourself, Louise, and willingly, for now you know that
it is a loving cup."?American Messenger.
THF. "RT VCCTMr r\T?
? ^.uuuuinu wr WUKA.
One of the best things for any young man is work.
Idleness is the devil's trap. Work is the liberation of
energy, the channel of achievement. Whatever one
may lack of native talent may be compensated for by
patient and persevering drudgery. The young man who
does not have to work is to be pitied; the man who
won't work is to be condemned; the man who is willing
to work but can find no work to do should have our
sympathy and our aid. But work is a generic term.
One can work with his brains as well as with his hands;
on his knees as well as on his feet; with his pen as well
as with his pick; with his pocketbook as well as with hi?
plumb line; with his prayers as well as with his possessions.
God has not held any of us up to one single
line of duty. Obligation is as wide as life, and our
energies should be as expansive as our vision and as
generous as our prayers.