“Our home!” exclaimed Fritz and his mother in a breath.
“Yes, yours to the end of your days,” said Carl Gesner. “Frau Arnt, I owe to your noble boy my life; and more than my life. I do not attempt to repay my debt by the gift of his father’s cottage, which I would that you had never left. I but show that I acknowledge that debt. You will find the place improved,” he added, more cheerfully. “We have been planting creepers to train up the wall; and I have had a board painted, to be hung up just below the lattice, to serve as a memorial of the battle in which Fritz and I fought side by side.”
Carl Gesner took up the board as he spoke, and turned it so that all could see the gilded letters upon it. Fritz glanced at the inscription, then at his mother, and smiled. Was it not strange that Carl Gesner should have happened to choose for the motto on the wall of the cottage the very words which had had such a deep effect on the heart of Fritz? There they were, to shine brightly from henceforth on his happy home, the parting words of his mother,—
It is God who giveth the Victory.
BEARING BURDENS.
“BEAR ye one another’s burdens,” said David Jones to himself, repeating the text as he walked home from church. “Our pastor has made it very plain. In this world, he says, every soul has some burden of sorrow or trial to bear, and every one who loves God must try to help his neighbour to bear it. Now it is clear enough that the squire does this when he gives blankets and coals to the poor at Christmas; and our parson does this, for every one in trouble is sure to go straight to him; but I can’t see how a boy like me is to do it. I can’t give like the squire, or talk like the parson; yet I should like to help to bear some one’s burden; for, as it was said in the sermon, it is a blessed thing to do anything for the Lord who has done everything for us; and when we help a poor neighbour for His sake, He counts it as done to Himself. I’ll pray God to show me some way of bearing another’s burdens.”
So before David went to rest that night, he made a little simple prayer that God would give him some work, however small, to do for Him, and let him be useful to others.
The first thought of David, when the bright rays of the sun awoke him on Monday morning, was,—“Here is another day; I hope that it will not pass over without my helping some one to bear his burden;” and again he turned the thought into a prayer. While David was putting on his clothes, an idea came into his mind,—