It bore on it the word, “Matches,” in ornate letters, all made of beads, but I noticed that its empty condition belied the inscription.

“Think of the hours of labor that some one has put on that,” she went on scornfully, “and now it is such an aristocrat that it takes up all its time at that and has no time to be useful.  I know now that it never really intended to hold matches, but simply lives to mock the honest seeker who really needs a match.  I have been a real sinner myself,” she went on after a pause; “I have been a fiddler, all right.  I may as well make a clean breast of it,—­I made that match-safe and nearly bored my eyes out doing it, and was so nervous and cross that I was not fit to live with.”

“I can’t believe that,” I said.

“Well, I sure was some snappy.  I have teased out towel ends, and made patterns on them; I’ve punched holes in linen and sewed them up again—­there is no form of foolishness that I have not committed—­and liked it!  But now I have ceased to be a fiddler and have become a citizen, and I am going to try to be a real good spoke in the wheel of progress.  I can’t express it very well, but I am going to try to link up with the people next me and help them along.  Perhaps you know what I mean—­I think it is called team-play.”

When the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa were burning, the main switch which controlled the lighting was turned off by mistake and the whole place was plunged into darkness, and this added greatly to the horror and danger.  The switch was down a long passage through which the smoke was rolling, and it seemed impossible for any one to make the journey and return.  Then the people who were there formed a chain, by holding each other’s hands—­a great human chain.  So that the one who went ahead felt the sustaining power of the one who came behind him.  If he stumbled and fell, the man behind him helped him to his feet and encouraged him to go on.  In this way the switch was reached, the light was turned on, and many lives were saved.

Over the world to-day roll great billows of hatred and misunderstanding, which have darkened the whole face of the earth.  We believe that there is a switch if we could get to it, but the smoke blinds us and we are choked with our tears.  Perhaps if we join hands all of us will be able to do what a few of us could never do.  This reaching-out of feeble human hands, this new compelling force which is going to bind us all together, this deep desire for cohesion which swells in our hearts and casts out all smallness and all self-seeking—­this is what we mean when we speak of the Next of Kin.  It is not a physical relationship, but the great spiritual bond which unites all those whose hearts have grown more tender by sorrow, and whose spiritual eyes are not dimmed, but washed clearer by their tears!