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January 20, 1909. THE PRESBYTERIA # 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 _, vv/wnuitiiigi^ lu uiv, auu pti Iiajja ^uu 111 il V 1IIIU 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.