HOW TO BEAR BURDENS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 19, 1892

HOW TO BEAR BURDENS.

YEARS ago I heard a little incident that I never forgot. In the East there is a hospital for the lepers, and Moravian missionaries have gone there to live and die among them. A high fence incloses the grounds, and one day a man was curious enough to climb up the fence that he might see the lepers in the garden, and he saw this strange sight: A man who had feet carrying a man who had hands, but no feet. The man who had feet scratched up the ground with his foot, and the man on his back dropped the seed he carried into the ground. I have often thought of the circumstance. We have to supplement the defects of others, and they ours. "Bear ye one another's burdens." I wish we could get down to real simplicity in the burden-bearing business.

In the long ago when I lived in a dear little parsonage and had little children, there came to see me a plain-looking little woman, a member of our church, who said: "You spoke last night of bearing one another's burdens, and I thought maybe you would let me help you bear yours, so I have come around to darn your stockings for you. You must have a basketful." And so I had. That basketful of stockings! I can see them now. And the dear little woman! she sat quietly mending the stockings. She did bear my burdens, for there were no sewing machines, and I had so much sewing to do.—Ladies' Home Journal.