"All right," said John. "Is she in bed?"
"No; she ain't kep' her bed a whole day, though she did ought to. But come in, doee now; it will cheer her up a bit to see you."
John Rossitter was quite shocked to see the change in Miss Toosey when he went into the parlor. She was sitting in the arm-chair by the fire, wrapped up in a big shawl, looking so small and shrunken and old and feeble that you could hardly have recognized the brisk little lady who was prepared to cross the seas and enter on the toils and perils of a missionary life; indeed, she looked more ready for the last short journey across Jordan's narrow stream, which ends all our travelling days, and to enter into the life where toils and perils are replaced by rest. She had been crying too, and could hardly summon up a wintry smile to receive John; and the tears overflowed more than once while he talked of his journey down, and his mother's rheumatism, and the tree that had been blown down the night before in their garden, trying to interest her and distract her thoughts by talking on indifferent subjects. His hand was resting on the table as he spoke, and, without thinking, he took hold of the missionary-box close by, and weighed it in his fingers. He hardly knew what he had in his hand till Miss Toosey burst out crying, and covered her eyes with her handkerchief.
"It is nearly empty," sobbed the poor old lady; "nearly empty!"
And then John Rossitter pulled his chair nearer to hers, and laid one of his warm, strong hands on her poor little weak cold one, and said, "What is it you are fretting about? Tell me."
And then she told him, sometimes interrupted by her sobs, sometimes by the fits of coughing that left her very breathless and exhausted. It had all failed, all the five barley-loaves she had had to offer; they were all worthless. She was too old and foolish and ignorant to give herself for the work; she was too poor to give any money, and the little she had saved with much care must go now for the doctor's bill; she had tried to give her time, but her anti-macassars would not sell, and she could not paint photographs; then she tried her influence; but she did not think she had any, for every one laughed when she spoke to them about the missions, and Mrs. Gardner Jones was offended when she gave her a tract with a negro's face on it, and "Am I not a man and a brother?"
"Then there was only my prayers, Mr. John, and I did think I could have done that at least; and I did keep on regularly with that prayer out of the magazine, but the last three nights I've been so tired and worn out that Betty would make me say my prayers after I was in bed; and I don't really think I could have knelt down; and every night I've dropped off to sleep before I got to the poor heathen. So I've failed in that too. And I've been thinking, thinking, thinking, as I sat here to-night, Mr. John, that perhaps the Lord would not take my barley-loaves, because they were so good-for-nothing; but I'd nothing else, nothing else!"
I do not think that John Rossitter had ever spoken a word on religious subjects in his life; he avoided discussion on such matters like the plague; and he was one of those reserved, deep natures who shrink from letting curious eyes peer into the sanctuary of their faith, and from dissecting their religious opinions with that clumsy scalpel, the tongue. Uninspired words seemed to him to be too rude and unwieldy to convey the subtle mysteries of faith, to break with their jarring insufficiency into the harmony of praise, to weigh down the wing of prayer that is struggling towards Heaven, to trouble the waters where we are trying to see the reflection "as in a glass darkly." There is but one power can open the close-sealed lips of such a nature, and that is when the angel takes a live coal from the great Altar of love and lays it on his mouth; and then he speaks, and with a power wanting in the glib outpourings of a shallower nature. And so John Rossitter found himself speaking words of comfort to Miss Toosey, which seemed like a new language to his unaccustomed lips; telling her how small, how poor everything earthly is in God's sight, and yet how nothing is too small, nothing too poor for the good Lord's notice; how the greatest saint is, after all, only an unprofitable servant; and how He can take a loving, humble heart in His hand and make it as much as He would.
"And you're sure, quite sure, that it's not because He's angry with me that He has not made use of me?"
"Dear old friend, He may make use of you yet."