ed as usual and given to the
child. She was a healthy baby, and her nurse remembers how she smiled
and welcomed her bottle, taking it in her little hands in her happy
eagerness. A few hours later she was dead.

At such times the heart seems foolishly weak, and things which would not
trouble it otherwise have power to make it sore. We were four days'
journey from the nursery at the time, and had the added anxiety about
the other babies, to whom we feared the poisoned milk might have been
given, and we dreaded what the next post might bring. Just at that
moment it was suggested, with kindest intentions, that perhaps we were
on the wrong track, the work seemed so difficult and wasteful.

It was mail-day. The mail as usual brought a pile of letters, and the
top envelope contained a bill for foods ordered from England some weeks
before. It came to more than I had expected, in spite of the kindness of
several firms in giving a liberal discount; and for a moment the
rice-water talk (to give it a name which covers all that type of talk)
came back to me with hurt in it: "To what purpose is this waste?" But
with it came another word: "Take this child away (away from the terrible
Temple) and nurse it for Me." And with the pile of letters before me,
and the bill for food in my hand, I asked that enough might be found in
those letters to pay it. It did not occur to me at the moment that the
prayer was rather illogical. I only knew it would be comforting, and
like a little word of peace, if such an assurance might even then come
that we were not off the lines.

Letter after letter was empty. Not empty of kindness, but quite empty
of cheques. The last envelope looked thin and not at all hopeful.
Cheques are usually inside reliable-looking covers. I opened it. There
was nothing but a piece of unknown writing. But the writing was to ask
if we happened to have a need which a sum named in the letter would
meet. This sum exactly covered the bill for the foods. When the cheque
eventually reached me it was for more than the letter had mentioned, and
covered all carriage and duty expenses, which were unknown to me at the
time the first letter came, and to which of course I had not referred in
my reply. Thus almost visibly and audibly has the Lord, from whose hands
we received this charge to keep, confirmed His word to us, strengthening
us when we were weak, and comforting us when we were sad with that
innermost sense of His tenderness which