Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-12-19
Better the blessing of the poor.

$1,000
was turned from his own door after years
spent in search of the sacred cup. and while
resting cold and hungry by a half frozen
spring dreaming of warmer countries and
the caravans of the desert he heard a voice
at his side.
"For Christ's sweet sake I beg an aims,
The happy came1s may reach the spring,
ButSirI aunfa1 sees only the gruesome thing,
The leper lank as the rain blanched bone,
That covers beside him, a thing as lone
And white as the ~ice-isles of Northern seas,
In the desolate horror of his disease,
And Sir Launfal said, I behold in thee
An image of Him who died on the tree;
Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns,
Thou also hast had the worlds Bullets and
scorns,
And to thy life were not denied,
The wounds in the hands and feet and side;
Mi1d Mary's son acknowledge me,
Behold through him 1 give to thee.
AS he spoke he remembered of that time
when long before he had flung his gold to
the leper at his gate, and
'sThe heart within him was ashes and dust,
He parted in twain his single crust.
He broke the ice in the streamlets brink.
And gave the leper to eat and drink,
And while he unused with downcast face,
The leper no longer crouched at his side
But stood before lin glorifed,
And thevoice that was softer than silence said
Lo it is L be not afraid
In many chimes without avail,
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail,
Behold it is here-this cup which thou;
Did'st fill at the streamlet for me but now,
This crust is my body broken for thee,
This water his blood that died on the tree; 4.
The Holy supper is kept indeed,
In whatso we share with another's need;
Not what we give but what we share,
For the gift without the giver is bare;
Who gives himself with his aims feeds three,
Himself, his hungering neighbor and Me-
The sign of the cross, how full of a deep,
intense meaning it is and has been to those
who know and owe Christ. What did it
mean to him? In thought and meditation
let us turn and stand before that cross out
side the city walls and ask the question;
before us we see it's answer, Gods gift, but
is that all? Look again; in that face you
behold not one driven under the lash to
flial obedience. Behold, I see love, divine,
unequaled love that turns resolutely from
every other way but that which leads to
Calvary; love that forgets its agony and
cries, "My father, forgive them;" love
that forgets it's own suffering and remem-
bers aImother's; that says to discipleship,
a mothers love, a sons guardianship I
commit to you. Yes, yes; but is that all?
No, thank God, behind that owe behold a
voluntary self sacrifice. Do we wear the
sign of the cross somewhere, somehow?
Does it mean to US what it meant to him?
What did the sign of the cross mean to
tina young missionary? of whom you may
have read. After six years of consecrated
labor in India her health failing she came
to her home in Ohio for a years rest. One
morning she noticed a spot upon her hand
that might we'll strike terror to the brav-
est heart. Without a word to her friends
she at once consulted eminent physicians,
who pronounced it leprosy of the most
malignant form. She returned home to
make ready to depart forever. She told
no one her awful secret, but said to her
mother and sisters that she must return at
once to India to take up her work. Dur
ing the few remaining days of her stay she
treated them with assumed Indifference,
suffering non to come near her. At part
ing, when her aged mother would have
hlSSCd hO1S III td11Co away "1Uh GILL
brutality. "Why do you go?" her mother
cried, "God does not call you to leave me-"
but she went without a word, bearing in
her body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
What can we know of that terrible jour-
ney? and yet she went calm and quiet.
A physician who saw her upon the way,
one who believes in 10 religion, said grave
ly, "That woman has something abont
which I know nothing" To the end of
life she was set apart from home, friends
n owe forever to God and her work.
The disease was in nature soon to run its
course, then death the most horrible con-
cievable. But here comes a fact stranger
than fiction. This was in 1890; when her
friends at home understood her case they
at once began united prayer in her behalf.
Writes one of her friends, SIN all of my
sixty years I have never known such uni
ted, earnest prayers as nave been made by
her friends at home and fellow-workers in
India. She has been six years in that 1eper
colony among the Himalayas and not only
has the disease advanced no further but
every symptom of it has disappeared, and
said a surgeon of the British Army recent
ly, "She is now practically a well woman"
Truly, the day of miracles is not yet past.
What did the cross mean to her? 1t meant
sacrifice, sacrifice such as we can and very
Xix ely shall never know anything about.
'sHe that gives himself" Can we before
God truly wear the sign of the cross and
not give ourselves. You and I need yet to
learn that it is not what we give but what
we share that makes a gift to be for his
sake and perfect like his own; not what
we give bnt what of ourselves we have put
our gifts. We give too much of worth-
less gold in comparison with the love and
life that we put into our gifts. If o
Mould 90 into a little VILLAGE in central