She felt that her morning had been a most unsatisfactory one; that she had sadly failed in her duty; that she had grieved her Master by her want of patience and gentleness, and had hurt her children's lives by her fretfulness and her ill-tempered words.

Shutting her door, she took up her Bible and read the story of the healing of the sick woman: "He touched her hand, and the fever left her; and she arose and ministered unto them." "Ah!" said she, "if I could have had that touch before I began my morning's work, the fever would have left me, and I should have been prepared to minister sweetly and peacefully to my family." She had learned that she needed the touch of Christ to make her ready for beautiful and gentle service.
In contrast with this story, and showing the blessed sweetness and holy influence of a life that gets Christ's touch in the morning, there is this account by Archdeacon Farrar of his mother: "My mother's habit was, every day, immediately after breakfast, to withdraw for an hour to her own room, and to spend that hour in reading the Bible, in meditation, and in prayer.

From that hour, as from a pure fountain, she drew the strength and the sweetness which enabled her to fulfil all her duties, and to remain unruffled by all the worries and pettinesses which are so often the intolerable trial of narrow neighborhoods.

As I think of her life, and of all it had to bear, I see the absolute triumph of Christian grace in the lovely ideal of a Christian lady.

I never saw her temper disturbed; I never heard her speak one word of anger, or of calumny, or of idle gossip.