all your reserved mercies. If your house is not quite so large as you would like, thank God it shelters you all. If you don't bring home much money Saturday night, tell heaven you're glad you have the work. Deeply touching is the story of one who had been terribly afflicted. Born in full health, disease came in the second year. In her own words, "Those happy days did not last long. One brief spring, musical with the song of robin and mocking-bird; one summer, rich in fruit and roses; one autumn of gold and crimson sped by and left their gifts at the feet of an eager, delighted child: then the sickness that closed eyes and ears." At last her own resolution, and the skill, science, and devotion of friends, wrought a marvel in the way of education. At every step there is the out-gush of gratitude. To the cultivated woman, the interview of the six-year-old child sitting on Alexander Graham Bell's lap and trying to catch the tinkling of his repeater seemed, as it was, "the door through which she would pass from darkness to light, from isolation to friendship, companionship, knowledge, love." Of one friend after another she said that they lived to diffuse happiness, declaring that in a thousand ways they had turned her limitations into beautiful privileges, enabling her to walk serene and happy in the shadows cast by her deprivation. Two forms in the Prayer Book we should often repeat: "Almighty God, father of all mercies, we thy unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving kindness to us and to all men. We bless thee for our creation, preservation and all the blessings of this life; but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord, Jesus Christ." The other is the Evening Thanksgiving in the Family Prayers: "To our prayers, O Lord, we join our unfeigned thanks for all thy mercies; for our being, our reason, and all other endowments and faculties of soul and body; for our health, friends, food and raiment, and all the other comforts and conveniences of life. We bless thee for thy patience with us, notwithstanding our many and grievous provocations; for all the directions, assistances and comforts of thy Holy Spirit; for thy continual care and watchful providence over us through the whole course of our lives." Well may we all cry, with the Psalmist: "Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits; Who forgiveth all thy sin, and healeth all thine infirmities; Who saveth thy life from destruction, and crowneth thee with mercy and loving kindness." |