Thank God for the gift of Jesus!

BREAD UPON THE WATERS

"Ah! Jacob, now you see how all your hopes are gone. Here we are worn
out with age--all our children removed from us by the hand of death,
and ere long we must be the inmates of the poorhouse. Where now is all
the bread you have cast upon the waters?"

The old, white-haired man looked up at his wife. He was, indeed, bent
down with years, and age sat tremblingly upon him. Jacob Manfred had
been a comparatively wealthy man, and while fortune had smiled upon
him he had ever been among the first to lend a listening ear and a
helping hand to the call of distress. But now misfortune was his. Of
his four boys not one was left. Sickness and failing strength found
him with but little, and had left him penniless. An oppressive embargo
upon the shipping business had been the first weight upon his head,
and other misfortunes came in painful succession. Jacob and his wife
were all alone, and gaunt poverty looked them coldly in the face.

"Don't repine, Susan," said the old man. "True we are poor, but we are
not yet forsaken."

"Not forsaken, Jacob? Who is there to help us now?"

Jacob Manfred raised his trembling finger toward heaven.

"Ah! Jacob, I know God is our friend, but we should have friends here.
Look back and see how many you have befriended in days long past. You
cast your bread upon the waters with a free hand, but it has not
returned to you."

"Hush, Susan, you forget what you say. To be sure I may have hoped
that some kind hand of earth would lift me from the cold depths of
utter want; but I do not expect it as a reward for anything I may have
done. If I have helped the unfortunate in days gone by, I have had my
full reward in knowing that I have done my duty to my fellows. Oh! of
all the kind deeds I have done to my suffering fellows, I would not
for gold have one of them blotted from my memory. Ah! my fond wife,
'tis the memory of the good done in life that makes old age happy.
Even now, I can hear again the warm thanks of those whom I have
befriended, and again I can see their smiles."

"Yes, Jacob," returned the wife, in a lower tone, "I know you have
been good, and in your memory you can be happy; but, alas! there is a
present upon which we must look--there is a reality upon which we
must dwell. We must beg for food or starve!"

The old man started, and a deep mark of pain was drawn across his
features.

"_Beg!_" he replied, with a q