I will give you another illustration of their condition. Not long ago I was sitting in my study when a department representative came to me and said that, lying out in the open, behind the Legation, was a poor old sick woman; and he thought perhaps I might be able to do something for her, as she needed attention very badly. I went and investigated the case and found a poor, decrepit old woman. I say old woman, for tho she was only about thirty-five years of age, at thirty-five in Persia they become broken down and decrepit. I investigated her case, and my investigation revealed this story. She had been the wife of a certain man and had gradually been getting blind. She had also fallen and broken her hip-joint, and, being no longer able to do his work, he had carried her out in the open desert and left her to die there. We took her in our hospital, where our doctor cared for her; and when they washed her in order to dress her wounds, they found that she had maggoted bed-sores on her body. We did everything we could for her, and God in His mercy relieved her of her physical sufferings. It was His mercy that placed her in our hands for the last few days of her life, in order that she might hear the story of the love of Christ.—Lewis F. Esselst, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.
(2342)
PERSISTENCE
If the wind is in the east with a blue hazy atmosphere it seems to affect the fish in some unaccountable way, and while it lasts a rise can rarely be got out of them. I have noticed this hundreds of times, often when the water was in splendid fishing order, and the river full of new run fish, but whatever quarter the wind blows from there is always a chance while the fly is in the water, and to insure success the angler must make up his mind to have many blank days. He must never tire of throwing his fly, and never be put out by failure.—H. Cholmondeley-Pennell, “Fishing.”
(2343)
Mutsuhito, Emperor of Japan, is the author of the following quatrain:
Amatari ni
Kubomishi noki no
Ishi mite mo