ch our Lord regards. The poor widow's mite was more
acceptable to Him than the ostentatious and lavish donations of the
wealthy. Yet the smallness, the seeming worthlessness, of our means is
often pleaded as an excuse for withholding them altogether. Because men
can do so little, they do nothing. It was the servant who had received
only one talent that wrapped his lord's money in a napkin, and buried it
in useless, unprofitable obscurity. When the multitudes hungered in the
wilderness, the disciples hesitated to bring the five barley loaves and
two small fishes, asking, "What are they among so many?" They were
taught, however, to produce their little all, utterly inadequate as it
was to the exigencies of the case, and lay it in the hands of Omnipotent
Love, that He might by His blessing increase it to the feeding of the
five thousand. "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to
confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to
confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world and
things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things that are not,
to bring to nought things that are, that no flesh should glory in His
presence."

This great truth is admirably illustrated in the following pages. In
the life of Christie Redfern we may see how the simple desire to serve
God, felt and acted upon by a poor, suffering child, may give an almost
heroic strength of character, and may produce results, the magnitude and
grandeur of which are altogether out of proportion to the feebleness of
the means employed.

CHAPTER ONE.

CHRISTIE'S CHILDHOOD.

"I've heard folks say it--I've seen it in a book myself--and I heard my
father read something like it, out of the Bible, last Sunday--`Ask, and
ye shall receive,' and in another place, `In everything by prayer and
supplication let your requests be made known unto God.' I might try it,
anyway."

But the voice that spoke was by no means a hopeful one, and there was
anything but a hopeful look on the face of the little girl who slowly
raised herself up from a mossy seat, where she had been quite hidden by
the branches of a tall birch-tree, that hung so low as to dip themselves
into the waters of the brook at the times when it ran fullest. It was a
very pretty place, and a very strange place for any child to look
anxious or discontented in. But the little girl looked as if she were
both; and there was, besides, a great deal