"Why, he has the pleasure of giving it!" cried Maggie.
"And it shows, at any rate, that he did not get poor by his first venture," said Meredith. "And the Lord will reckon it 'at that day' as all done for Him."
"I don't think people are obliged to give away all they have got," said Flora.
"Suppose they do not reckon anything they have their own? The Christians in the early times did not, if the Lord's work or the needs of others wanted it more."
"Extravagance!" said Flora. "Just enthusiasm."
"Come, I will read you another story. But the poor woman who gave all she had into the Lord's treasury was not rated as a fool by Him. I will read you now—
"'A PROBLEM ABOUT STUTEN MONEY.
"'Most of you know, it is true, right well what stuten money is, but certainly all do not. Among us, when people go to church on Sunday, the children and younger serving people of the peasants get a groschen to take along, with which they can buy a stuten, that is, a white roll, at noon when they come out of church; by the help of which they can stay in the village and so go to church again in the afternoon. Now there are a boy, a girl, and an old woman known to me, who have no other money but the stuten money they get on Sundays. So each one of them falls to considering how he or she can do something for the heathen. And they arrange it on this wise. One of them every other Sunday eats no roll, and thinks within herself, "I ate as much as I wanted this morning at home, and I can do the same again this evening." The two others buy each a small roll for half a groschen, and lay up the other half-groschen every Sunday; and when the year comes round, they have all three of them, counting the festivals, thirty groschen saved up, and bring them with glad, smiling faces to go for the conversion of the heathen. And upon being afterwards asked whether hunger did not often trouble them on Sunday? they say, they have always felt as if they had had enough; and, with God's help, they will do the same way next year.'"
"What sort of a story do you call that?" asked Flora when her brother paused.
"I call it a story of what can be done."