At last she grew tired of the puzzling thought, and said to herself, “I won’t bother myself thinking about it any more.  He will tell me all about it when he comes home.  I only hope we may be able to help the poor widow and make her ‘poor heart sing for joy.’  There,” she exclaimed, “can that be what he meant?  The widow’s heart singing for joy!  Wouldn’t that be a singing school?  It must be; it is just like John.  How funny that I should find it out!” and she laughed merrily at her lucky guess.  Taking up her work again, she stitched away with a happy smile on her face, as she thought over again her husband’s words, and followed him in imagination in his kind ministrations.  By-and-by two shining tears dropped down, tears of pure joy, drawn from the deep wells of her love for her husband, of whom she thought she never felt so fond before.  At the first sound of footsteps she sprang to open the door.

“Oh, John! did you start the singing school?”

“I reckon I did,” said the husband, as soon as he could loose his wrappings; “but I want you to hunt up some flannels and things to help to keep it up.”

“Oh, yes!  I will; I know now what you mean.  I have thought it all out.  Making the widow’s ‘heart sing for joy’ is your singing school. (Job. xxix:13.) What a precious work, John!  ’Pure religion and undefiled is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction.’  My own heart has been singing for joy all the evening because of your work, and I do not mean to let you do it alone.  I want to draw out some of this wonderful music.”

IT PAYS TO GIVE TO THE LORD.

“A clergyman states, that soon after he dedicated himself to the service of Christ, he resolved, as Jacob did, ’Of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give a tenth unto thee.’  Of the first $500 he earned, he gave $130, and in such a way that it incited a wealthy friend to give several hundreds more, including a donation of $100 to this clergyman himself.  For four years, the clergyman says, ’My expenses were small, my habits economical, and the only luxury in which I indulged was the luxury of giving.  In the two first of these years I was permitted to give $500.’  ‘On a review of my ministry of about sixteen years,’ he adds, ’I find God has graciously permitted me to give to the cause of my Redeemer nearly $1,200, by which amount about forty life memberships have been created in various evangelical societies.  During all these years God has prospered me; has given me almost uninterrupted health; has surrounded me with sweet domestic ties; and my congregation, by means in part perhaps of a steady example, have given more in these sixteen years than in all their long previous history.”

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF BENEFICENCE.