p. 452 | THE SILVER PLATE by Margaret J. Preston

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 14, 1880

THE SILVER PLATE.

By Margaret J. Preston

They passed it along from pew to pew, And gathered the coins, now fast, now few, That rattled upon it; and every time Some eager fingers would drop a dime On the silver plate with a silver sound, A boy who sat in the aisle looked 'round With a wistful face—"Oh, if only he Had a dime to offer, how glad he'd be!" He fumbled his pockets, but didn't dare To hope he should find a penny there; And much as he searched, when all was done, He hadn't discovered a single one.

He had listened with wide-set, earnest eyes, As the minister, in a plaintive wise, Had spoken of children all abroad The world who had never heard of God— Poor, pitiful pagans who didn't know, When they came to die, where their souls would go, And who shrieked with fear, when their mother made Them kneel to an idol-god—afraid He might eat them up—so fierce and wild And horrid he seemed to the frightened child. "How different," murmured the boy, while his Lips trembled, "how different Jesus is!"

And the more the minister talked, the more The boy's heart ached to its inner core; And the nearer to him the silver plate Kept coming, the harder seemed his fate That he hadn't a penny (had that sufficed) To give that the heathen might hear of Christ; But all at once, as the silver sound, Just tinkled beside him, the boy looked 'round, And they offered the piled-up plate to him, And he blushed, and his eyes began to swim.

Then bravely turning, as if he knew There was nothing better that he could do, He spoke, in a voice that held a tear, "Put the plate on the bench beside me here." And the plate was placed, for they thought he meant To empty his pockets of every cent, But he stood straight up, and softly put Right square in the midst of the plate—his foot, And said, with a sob controlled before, "I will give MYSELF—I have nothing more!" —Margaret J. Preston.