The kind-hearted doctor often entertained him by telling of his experiences while surgeon in a hospital during the war.

“Do you know,” he said one day in the midst of a story, “that the men who had been bravest on the field of battle were most patient in bearing suffering?  They showed what we call fortitude, and bravery and fortitude go hand in hand.”

This was an encouraging thought to Archie, for he resolved to show that he could endure suffering as well as any soldier.  Another thing that helped him very much was the fact, of which his mother reminded him, that by trying to be patient he was doing what he could, to please the Lord Jesus.

“It was He,” she said, “who allowed this trial to come to you, because He saw that through it you might grow to be a better and a nobler boy.  And you will be growing better every day by simply trying to be patient, as I see you do.”

“I want to be, mamma,” Archie answered; “and there’s another thing about this broken leg, I think it will teach me to care more when other people are sick.”

“No doubt it will, Archie, and if you learn to exercise patience and sympathy, your vacation will not be lost, after all.”

A Birthday Story.

BY MRS. M.E.  SANGSTER.

Jack Hillyard turned over in his hand the few bits of silver which he had taken from his little tin savings-bank.  There were not very many of them, a ten cent piece, a quarter, half a dollar and an old silver six-pence.  And he had been saving them up a long, long time.

“Well,” said Jack to himself, soberly, “there aren’t enough to buy mother a silk dress, but I think I’ll ask Cousin Susy, if she won’t spend my money and get up a birthday party for the darling little mother.  A birthday cake, with, let me see, thirty-six candles, that’ll be a lot, three rows deep, and a big bunch of flowers, and a book.  Mother’s never had a birthday party that I remember.  She’s always been so awfully busy working hard for us, and so awfully tired when night came, but I mean her to have one now, or my name’s not Jack.”

Away went Jack to consult Cousin Susy.

He found her very much occupied with her dressmaking, for she made new gowns and capes for all the ladies in town, and she was finishing up Miss Kitty Hardy’s wedding outfit.  With her mouth full of pins, Cousin Susy could not talk, but her brown eyes beamed on Jack as she listened to his plan.  At last she took all the pins out of her mouth, and said: 

“Leave it all to me, Jack.  We’ll give her a surprise party; I’ll see about everything, dear.  Whom shall we ask?”

“When thou makest a dinner or a supper,” said Jack, repeating his golden text of the last Sunday’s lesson, “call not thy friends, nor thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors, lest they also bid thee again and a recompense be made thee.  But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee.”