with all inspirations dear,
Wherein we breathe the large, free breath
Of life that hath no taint of death.
Our friend is an unconscious part
Of every true beat of our heart;
A strength, a growth, whence we derive
God's health, that keeps the world alive."

There is a touching and very suggestive story of a good woman in
Sweden, who opened a home for crippled and diseased children--children
for whom no one else was ready to care. In due time she received into
her home about twenty of these unfortunate little ones. Among them was
a boy of three years, who was a most frightful and disagreeable object.
He resembled a skeleton. His skin was covered with hideous blotches
and sores. He was always whining and crying. This poor little fellow
gave the good lady more care and trouble than all the others together.
She did her best for him, and was as kind as possible--washed him, fed
him, nursed him. But the child was so repulsive in his looks and ways,
that, try as she would, she could not bring herself to like him, and
often her disgust would show itself in her face in spite of her effort
to hide it. She could not really love the child.

One day she was sitting on the veranda steps with this child in her
arms. The sun was shining brightly, and the perfume of the autumn
honeysuckles, the chirping of the birds, and the buzzing of the
insects, lulled her into a sort of sleep. Then in a half-waking,
half-dreaming state, she thought of herself as having changed places
with the child, and as lying there, only more foul, more repulsive in
her sinfulness than he was.

Over her she saw the Lord Jesus bending, looking lovingly into her
face, yet with an expression of gentle rebuke in his eye, as if he
meant to say, "If I can bear with you who are so full of sin, surely
you ought, for my sake, to love that innocent child who suffers for the
sin of his parents."

She woke up with a sudden start, and looked into the boy's face. He
had waked, too, and was looking very earnestly into her face. Sorry
for her past disgust, and feeling in her heart a new compassion for
him, she bent her face to his, and kissed him as tenderly as ever she
had kissed babe of her own. With a startled look in his eyes, and a
flush on his cheek, the boy gave her back a smile so sweet that she had
never seen one like it before. From that moment a wonderful change
came over the child. He understood the new affection that had come
inste