e see how certain it is that God does provide relief in trouble
for those who love and serve Him.

GOD KNOWS THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL.

"Mother, I think God always hears when we scrape the bottom of the
barrel," said a little boy to his mother one day. His mother was poor.
They often used up their last stick of wood and their last bit of bread
before they could tell where the next supply was to come from. But they
had so often been provided for in unexpected ways, just when they were
most in need, that the little boy thought _God always heard when they
scraped the bottom of the barrel_. This was only that little fellow's
way of saying what Abraham said when he called the name of the place
where God had delivered him, "Jehovah-Jireh."

GOD'S CARE FOR LITTLE CHILDREN IN LITTLE WANTS.

"I was early taught that God cares for His children, even to regard
their _little_ daily wants. An illustration of my implicit confidence,
which I do not remember ever to have been betrayed, occurred when I was
about ten years of age. I was accustomed to give five cents each Sabbath
at the Sunday School collection for foreign missions. This money was not
given me directly by my parents; but I was allowed to go on an errand,
or to do some little piece of work for a neighbor and thus earn it,
outside of the performance of the duties that naturally fell to my lot
at home. At one time, when I was attending school about a mile from
home, my time out of school was taken up by my walk to and from it and
the chores which necessarily fall to a farmer's boy, so that for some
months I had no opportunity of earning anything. One Sabbath morning, I
dropped my last silver piece into the collection, with a prayer--which I
always offered at such a time--that God would bless it to the heathen,
that some one might be led to Him by it.

"I went home that day with a child's anxiety, feeling that I could not
bear the thought of giving nothing for the heathen on next Sabbath, and
yet not seeing how I could possibly obtain it. That night I asked my
Heavenly Father to provide the money for me. The anxiety was all gone;
for I felt that God would answer. Next morning, when almost at the
school-house, I found a handkerchief in the road, in the corner of which
was securely tied a silver quarter and a silver dime. Instantly my
thoughts flew to the next Sabbath, and to the prayer I had offered. O,
yes! I thought, God has more than answered my prayer; instead