GOODNESS LAID UP by Julia H. Johnston

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 20, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 16.

"GOODNESS LAID UP."

By Julia H. Johnston

"My dear, I have been longing to see you again ever since you were a tiny girl."

Laura Lee looked up amazed into the kindly face of a friend of her hostess, who greeted her in this fashion upon introduction. She only said, "Why, Mrs. Gordon, how strange!" but her face was full of interrogation points. The older lady drew Laura to a chair, still holding her hand in a tender clasp.

"I knew your father and mother, and I knew you in G—," she said. "I heard your father preach his farewell sermon in that far eastern town before you all came west. No one who knew your father and mother ever forgot them. When I came west myself I heard of you through others, and in some way I kept up the knowledge all these years. I remember you well as a wee child. I always felt that I should see you again. I have had a heart full of love waiting for you till now."

"O, to think that I should never have known it in all these years!" exclaimed the impulsive girl.

"It has been kept for you just the same," was the gentle answer.

"How beautiful it is," said Laura. "I need it more now than ever before."

"Yes, I know," and the new friend laid her other hand upon the one she held with tender caressing.

After that, during the visit the two friends saw much of each other. "Now that I know of it," said Laura, "I want to draw upon my treasure kept for me so long."

"How great is Thy goodness which Thou hast laid up," was her "pillow text" one night. It took on a new meaning as she read it. "It makes me think of Mrs. Gordon's love kept for me so long," she said to herself.

Ah, truly we are not given all our good things at once. We come into our heritage by degrees. Like earthly parents, God "knows how" to give, and He knows when. Not all the store-up good will be kept for eternity.

"Along the daily path, and in the common round, The sweet surprises fall in love-thoughts which abound." —Julia H. Johnston, in Boys and Girls.