PATIENCE AND CHARITY.



"Oh, don't I wish there was a patience shop; wouldn't I just buy some," said Susan, somewhat excitedly.

"Well, I think you ought to be a profitable customer," sarcastically exclaimed her brother Arthur.

"You're a mean fellow," responded Susan, "and if there was only a charity store, you ought to spend all your money there."

Mrs. Miles heard these remarks, and, instead of upbraiding her children, suggested that possibly an investment in both patience and charity might be good for each, and expressed the belief that she knew where both might be secured.

The young folks were eager to know what mother meant, and Susan, who had been greatly troubled by a selfimposed task of work, and had lost her stock of patience over it, begged her mother to tell her where she might obtain a fresh supply.

Her mother said something about a certain great man named Paul, who once wrote on the subject. He said that tribulation worketh patience; and she proceeded to show her children that trials and troubles, vexations and annoyances, were permitted by God in order that his people might learn to exercise patience. No amount of money would buy patience; but if all our perplexities and difficulties were committed to God in prayer, we should find that as each storm serves to make the trees take firmer root-hold, so all unpleasant circumstances would serve to make the grace of patience take stronger hold in the heart. Patience, moreover, is not an earthly possession. She said, "It must come from him who is called the God of patience, and who will give this and everything else that is good, to those who ask him in sincerity."

Much more was said about patience, and Arthur and Susan read, at their mother's request, all the verses in the New Testament that contained the word, and they profited by the exercise. At the close, Susan said she felt as though she had a little more patience now, and she proposed to ask God to help her to take care of it. 

Then some conversation was held about charity, of its preciousness in God's sight as shown in the thirteenth chapter of Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, which was read. The children also hunted up some verses from the first epistle of St. John, about loving our brethren, and Arthur decided that he would seek the gift of charity.

As the mother was called away to other duties, and the young people were left alone, they said almost in the same breath: "Well, I really do believe there is a patience and a charity store after all, only God keeps it." 

This incident occurred so recently that I cannot say how far Susan and Arthur have improved in these respects; but I know that their resolutions were made heartily, and I trust they may so be kept. 





New York Observer