Old Mary’s active days are over, and very quietly she sits now in a low chair, by the cheerful blaze of a large fire, in a long ward of the great workhouse.
Her friends would hardly recognize in the calm, placid, old woman the once bustling person they had known; she who used to be here, there, and everywhere, so busy in her work about her house, now paralyzed, too infirm to move, seated from morning till night just where they place her. It was a great change, her neighbors thought a very trying one; but Mary, like her namesake of old, had “chosen the good part,” and, as she sat at the feet of Jesus, and heard His word, she did not find her confinement so irksome as her pitying friends imagined.
“Indeed, I am very snug and very happy,” she answered to their sympathizing words, “and I have plenty to do too, though I do just sit here where they put me in the morning till night comes round again. Shall I tell you what I do? Just pray for everyone all day long. I say that my prayers go like telegrams to heaven: only they are a deal more wonderful than any telegrams the telegraph office sends out; for, at most, these can only go round this world, but my prayers go right up into the ear of the great God in heaven. And He does send such answers to my telegrams, that He does, and never gets tired of them; so then I make bold to send up a few more.”
No wonder that old Mary is happier now than ever she was, for in her helplessness she is doing a work far greater than many a one who, Martha like, seems more busy in the Master’s service.
Many a rain cloud, that has emptied itself on the dry, thirsty land, has found its birthplace in some hidden lake, far off among the mountains; rising there, as a faint mist into the heavens, and coming down from thence in refreshing showers to water the parched earth, or to cool the sultry air of some distant city. Who knows what rich blessing Mary’s earnest prayers may have brought to souls who have never heard of the poor old saint in her quiet corner. Surely Epaphras was such another, “laboring fervently” in prayers for the saints, that they might “stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.”
Dear reader, do you sometimes grieve that you can do so little for the Lord Jesus, and for those whom He loves? Remember old Mary’s “telegrams,” and think if, at least, you could not send up a few such to our God, who hears and answers prayer. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you.” D. & A. C.