MY COMFORTS.

As we look back over the work of the past months it seems fitting that we should take notice not only of the solace the visits have been but of the various helps we have had from friends outside the Mission, who have put it in the power of the Bible-woman and Nurse to shed many rays of brightness and take many pleasures into the homes they visit.

It would of course be out of the question to tell all the instances we hear of in which these have been thankfully received, but we give a few, and we may begin by a letter from a Nurse whose little charge has had many helps from the Mission. She thus writes:

"I went on Sunday to see Lizzie at the Sick Asylum; she keeps just about the same, but is bright and cheerful, and looks much more comfortable than she did in her home. When I asked her if she liked being there, she said, 'Very much; they are very kind to me, and give me whatever I fancy.' When I asked her if she prayed to the Lord, she said, 'Yes, Miss, I allus says my prayers.' She is a very teachable child. She wishes to thank the young lady for the doll which I took her; she thinks a great deal of it, and all the little ones like to have it for a while. She is very careful over it, but not selfish. Some time ago I took her a puzzle from the Mission that is prized very much, and the children gather round her bed to help put it together, and so it causes pleasure to all. Even the nurses will come sometimes and amuse the children in trying to make it out."

Of the same child, when in her home, before going to the Asylum, we are told :-" She is looking white and careworn, her little playmates not caring to come and see her on such a bright morning. She is very lonely, spending many hours in the day with no one to speak to, but was pleased with a picturebook we left for her to look at, and told us all the children had played with the last one we left, and was quite proud to show us that it was not torn."

Of another of these child-sufferers we read :— "Lizzie Sis an old patient of Nurse's. The cough had been very

troublesome during the night, so that she was not so well this morning. Nurse dressed the wounds, which her little patient bore very bravely. She was much pleased to repeat two hymns to us, which she did very correctly, having a good memory. She passes many hours learning hymns and pieces of poetry, and is so delighted with the picture-books and shellbox that Nurse has taken to her."

The Text Quilts, with their silent messages, are greatly prized.

We are glad to have replaced a Nurse on Lambeth Walk District, and many old patients are thankful to be again cared for. Among them is an old lady of eighty, who said today that "her bed and bedding had not been turned about so for many a day." She is too weak to make it herself, as she suffers from heart disease. She can only lie on one side. We have been able to give her another pillow, for her own were very old and small. We saw the bed, covered by a half-worn text-quilt given her ten years ago. It is still much prized, and well mended with all sorts of patches, but all the texts are still in full view. She is pleased to go out to the meeting, and has a black bonnet, made by Nurse, who fetches her up water, and helps her in many ways. She is very cheerful in her small back room, and, in her little way, works for God. She saves all tracts or books that are given to her, and once a week, when she goes to the workhouse for her allowance, while waiting she gives away the tracts and books, and speaks a word to the other poor people about her "best friend, Jesus."

But there are other forms in which the Scripture is set before the eyes of the sick. "I was quite pleased," says one. "to find how well Mrs. H-, the married sister of a patient, is teaching herself to read from one of the Eastbourne Text Rolls lent by Nurse when formerly attending her. Then she could not spell, but now reads the texts to me."

Even the little texts given or sent often open the door to some happy thought.

"One poor woman was just able to sit up. Nurse had been doctor as well as nurse; the poor mother is so thankful. As Nurse opened the parcel of baby clothes, there she saw

a pair of boots with the text, 'Lead us not into temptation.' 'Oh, Nurse, look here; is not this beautiful! Why it means that the little feet are not to go into temptation.' And still looking at them, repeated, That is beautiful, because, of course, it is the feet that go into temptation, isn't it?' It opened a way for us to tell her it was the heart first, and that was why God asked her to give Him her heart, and then she could guide the little one, and all would be kept from evil. She seemed quite thoughtful over the little boots, saying she never had such a thing given her before, though she had a large family."

Sometimes they give the Nurse an opportunity of speaking a word. We are told of a poor woman struggling with her weakness, and yet wishing to go to church to give thanks, and then to go to market, who is comforted by the Pioneer,"She was so depressed, she just put her arms on the mantelpiece, and wept over a card I had given her, which told her that one care was too much for her to bear, that work belonged to God, and she was to rest in Him."

SHELLS.

Even so small a thing as a box of shells may be of use and do good. A man had met with an accident; the poor wife was crying, and the children screaming also at the sad state of mother and father. Poor Nurse could not get quietness anyhow till she bethought herself of the shells; when she produced it, the sight of the box, and afterwards the contents, did all that was wanted, and Nurse had peace to arrange about a doctor and what was to be done, as the children were soon thinking of the shells and not of the trouble. I have seen the delight such a thing has given to the little ones, and so enabled nurses to do with ease what otherwise would have been a trouble.

SCRAPBOOK.

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Of one of the little lonely ones who enjoy the bright pictures interspersed with texts and hymns, we read :-" Charlotte B—'s mother is a widow and has to go out to work, leaving the two children, as she says, 'to take care of themselves.' Charlotte is most anxious soon to get well, as it is near her

Sunday School treat. She is so pleased with the scrapbook Nurse has lent her; not being able to go to school, she is amused for a long time looking at the pictures, and is very careful not to tear it."

The leaflets, too, have their silent work.

"Mrs. W was much pleased with a small Gospel leaflet we left for her to enclose with the next letter she sent to her son. She told us that he was steady and a great comfort to her when at home, and now that he has been sent out to the war, she was thankful to God for sparing him in the time of danger.”

TEXT-CARDS.

A dear old woman, Mrs. S- is so very grateful for the extra help that Nurse has been enabled to give her from the Mission. Her cough has been more trying, so that the little needlework that she can sometimes get to do has had to be put on one side; the food taken to her by Nurse was the more needed. In expressing her thanks, she said

"And I do pray for the ladies of your Mission every day, and thank God for raising up such kind friends that I have never but you will thank them for me, won't you ? "

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It was very touching to hear this dear old Christian try to speak the gratitude which we could see she felt so deeply. We read our Psalm for the day together, the 17th, and she was especially helped by the last sentence, "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness."

"Yes, when we see the King in His beauty, we shall be satisfied, shall we not? But not until then, because we want every day to be better and better, more patient, and more contented than we are."

She looks so happy, sitting up in bed with her clean, white cap, and the many text-cards, taken to her at various times, arranged on the walls all round. She says, looking at them, "These are my comforts."

NURSE IN THE FLOODED DISTRICT. NURSE is again much engaged with a family where, as was mentioned some months ago, the mother attempted suicide. At that time the mother and the twin babes were well cared

for when the cottage was flooded from the high tide. Since then Nurse has watched over the poor mother, and again attended her in her time of need, and now has nursed the husband and eldest son, aged about eleven years, through typhoid fever. The father, a steady man, was a lamplighter and bootmaker; he had not been well for some time, and after he took to his bed lived only thirteen days. Nurse was much with him, and most of the day, Sunday, on the evening of which he died, he earnestly joined in the prayers offered for himself and his family. We trust he has gone home. The boy was improving, but very weak, and as the lower part of the cottage was again flooded from the high tide, he would have been obliged to stay in the room with his dead father had not the Nurse removed him at once to her own home, where she cared for him for three weeks. She is now about to send him to the Eastbourne Convalescent Home, having first had to seek clothes and money for him to go away warm and comfortable.

The poor widow went to the funeral, and immediately on her return home another baby was born, when Nurse attended to her and is continuing to care for her. The sickly twins, who are now about two years of age, and another little boy who is not strong, are so far provided for from the husband's club. Another child is at his aunt's, and having burnt his hand Nurse dresses that also. The home is clean and tidy, but still very damp from the flood, which came in high enough to put out the fire in the ground-floor rooms of many of the cottages in this neighbourhood, and up the new street where Nurse lives.

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We were told of another patient who had burnt his face, and hands, and arms, the day previous by an explosion of gas at the works where he is employed. After holding his arm some time to the fire he went to a chemist, and had lint and carbolic oil wrap round his arms, but when we went in this afternoon he was much in need of attention. His wife was out at work washing for a neighbour, and the room was cold, so Nurse made up the fire, put on more oil, and with wadding and bandag made the hands and arms more comfortable, and told him not to think of going out in the air, or drinking cold beer, for fear of erysipelas in the head. I think the poor man will pay

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