The same evening on which Yusuf visited the temple, a woman and her two children sat in a dingy little room with an earthen floor, in one of the most dilapidated streets of Mecca.  The woman’s face bore traces of want and suffering, yet there was a calm dignity and hopefulness in her countenance, and her voice was not despairing.  She sat upon a bundle of rushes placed on the floor.  No lamp lighted the apartment, but through an opening in the wall the soft starlight shone upon the bands of hair that fell in little braids over her forehead.  Her two beautiful children were beside her, the girl with her arm about her mother, and the boy’s head on her lap.

“Will we have only hard cake for breakfast, mother, and to-morrow my birthday, too?” he was saying.

“That is all, my little Manasseh, unless the good Father sees fit to send us some way of earning more.  You know even the hairs of our heads are numbered, so he takes notice of the poorest and weakest of his children, and has promised us that there will be no lack to them that fear him.”

“But, mother, we have had lack many, many times,” said the boy thoughtfully.

The mother smiled.  “But things have usually come right in the end,” she said, “and you know ’Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.’  We cannot understand all these things now, but it will be plain some day.  ‘We will trust, and not be afraid,’ because our trust is in the Lord; and we know that ‘he will perfect that which concerneth us,’ if we trust him.”

“And will he send father home soon?” asked the boy.  “We have been praying for him to come, so, so long!  Do you think God hears us, mother?  Why doesn’t he send father home?”

The woman’s head drooped, and a tear rolled down her cheek, but her voice was calm and firm.

“Manasseh, child,” she said, “your father may never return; but, though a Jew, he was a Christian; and, living or dead, I know he is safe in the keeping of our blessed Lord.  Yes, Manasseh, God hears the slightest whisper breathed from the heart of those who call upon him in truth.  He says, Jesus says, ‘I know my sheep, and am known of mine.’  Little son, I like to think that our blessed Savior, who ’laid down his life for the sheep,’ is here—­in this very room, close to us.  Sometimes I close my eyes and think I see him, looking upon us in mercy and love from his tender eyes, and he almost seems so near that I may touch him.  No, he will never forsake us.  Little ones, my constant prayer for you is that you may learn to realize the depths of his love, and to render him your hearts in return; that you may feel ever closer to him than to any earthly parent, and prove yourselves loving, faithful children of whom he may not be ashamed.”

The woman’s voice trembled with emotion as she concluded, and a glow of happiness illuminated her thin features.