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Sociology

Poverty - by James Platt

was that there was something in the bottom, whether a man, woman, or a bundle of things, they could not tell; it might be a living person. What was to be done? There was no time to lose. One of the party, a strong swimmer, offered to swim out to the boat with a rope round his body, so as to get into the canoe and fasten the rope to the thwarts, and they, by their united strength, pull them to the shore; but if he failed to reach her, they were to pull him to the bank. Being a strong swimmer, he soon reached the canoe, and found a woman in a swoon lying in the bottom. Making the rope fast he gave the signal, and the canoe was pulled to the bank with her living freight, and by the timely use of restoratives soon brought her round, and she recovered. She was just snatched from going over the Falls into the seething cauldron below.

That is just like "the lost saying found," the motto for this chapter. All that we know about the Lord Jesus Christ is to be found in the Four Gospels, and a few incidents handed down to us through the Epistles; and John tells us, in the concluding verses of his Gospel, " That if all the Lord Jesus had said and done were recorded, the world itself would not contain the books that recorded them." What a busy life His was! But there is one saying of the Lord Jesus Christ's, just like the woman in the canoe, who was being swiftly swept to oblivion, but brought out some one's memory and told the Apostle Paul, who, when he was taking leave of the elders of Ephesus on the seashore, said this, "Remembering the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, How it is more blessed to give than to receive." How strange this will sound to the young, especially at Christmas, New Year, or on birthdays, the special seasons for expecting and receiving gifts. How they seem to be dissolved into thin air by these startling words of the Lord Jesus. And all those who, like Mr. Micawber, are waiting "for something to turn up," these words seem to cut away at one blow all their fancied happiness. It seems to have turned the world upside down. There is another startling truth hanging on to this, "That it is impossible to give without receiving."

What will most children do? Imitate others, especially those that are older. They will put on grandfather's nightcap or grandmother's spectacles,