Lending a Hand Up by Kate S. Yates

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 27, 1882

Lending a Hand Up

By Kate S. Yates

There was a little stir the next day when Mrs. Archer in her deep mourning robes, came into the store. Somehow, no one quite knew how, but very easily and naturally, she obtained an introduction to Graham. Just as easily and naturally she found, in the five minutes' conversation at his desk that he was a stranger in the city.

"Lonely?" "Yes, he was," he frankly admitted. "Boarding-houses weren't homes, by any means."

"Would he not come up and see her some evening—say this very night—and tell her about his home? She used to live in just such a pleasant little village. And would not Mr. Denholm like to see Jack's new Western views? He had some fine ones."

It was not much,—perhaps hardly any one would think of calling it missionary work. Just a fine pleasant evening by a home fireside, and yet the two invited guests, who received at the close of the evening a cordial invitation to come freely and bring any friends they pleased, as to their own homes, these two went forth with a strong sense of purification, and better fitted to meet life's temptations. There had been nothing said, but the purity of the home fireside had given them an unconquerable aversion to the haunts they had frequented of late. And Helen Archer had found her mission, without going to China or Japan.

"I'm lending a hand up," she thought.

"It's just as noble and grand here as it would be there," thought Jack, looking on.—Kate S. Yates, in Intelligencer.