find it hard to provide for
their children. It takes all their time and strength, and sometimes
they say, "I cannot do any work for Christ, because it takes every
moment to earn bread and clothing for my little ones, and to care for
them." But Jesus whispers, "Yes; yet your children are mine, and what
you do for them you do for me."

There is in a home an invalid who requires all the time and thought of
another member of the household in loving attention. It may be an aged
parent needing the help of a child; it may be a child, crippled, blind,
or sick, needing all a parent's care; or it may be a brother broken in
health on whom a sister is called to wait continually with patient
love. And sometimes those who are required thus to spend their days
and nights in ministry for others feel that their lives count for
nothing in work for Christ. They hear the appeals for laborers and for
service, but cannot respond. Their hands are already filled. Yet
Jesus whispers, "These for whom you are toiling, caring, and spending
time and strength are mine, and in doing for them you are doing for me
just as acceptable work as are those who are toiling without
distraction or hindrance in the great open field."

Sometimes the work we do for Christ with purest love fails, or seems to
fail of result. Nothing appears to come of it. There are whole
lifetimes of godly people that seem to yield nothing. A word ought to
be said about this kind of doing for Christ. We are to set it down as
true without exception, that no work wrought in Christ's name and with
love for him is ever lost. What we, in our limited, short-sighted
vision, planned to do may not be accomplished, but God's purpose goes
on in every consecrated life, in every true deed done. The disciples
thought that Mary's costly ointment was wasted. So it seemed; but this
world has been a little sweeter ever since the breaking of the vase
that let the perfume escape into its common air. So it is with many
things that are done, and many lives that are lived. They seem to
fail, and there is nothing on the earth to show where they have been.
Yet somehow the stock of human happiness is larger and the world is a
little better.

Our work for Christ that fails in what we intended may yet leave a
blessing in some other way. A faithful Bible-class teacher through
many months visited a young man, a member of her class, in sickness.
She read the Bible to him and sang sweet hymns