She hath done what she could! If she had been able to offer no more than a bunch of sweet herbs gathered in the fields, we cannot doubt that the offering would have been as acceptable to the Lord of earth and sky as the costly ointment. He to whom belong the cattle upon a thousand hills was as well pleased with the turtle doves—the sacrifice of the very poorest—as with the oxen and sheep of the prince in Israel. Let us never hesitate to give what we can because the gift is small. She hath done what she could! It was her love which made the offering acceptable. She first gave herself (2 Cor. viii. 5), and the rest followed, as a matter of course. Let us honestly offer and present to the Lord ourselves, our souls and bodies, our powers, our very weakness and hindrances, and having done so, let us, as some old divine says, "keep ourselves on the altar," taking back nothing of all that we have given. The altar shall sanctify the gift, and make it as worthy of our Lord's acceptance as was Mary's box of precious perfume. _PALM SUNDAY._ _CHILDREN IN THE TEMPLE._ THE great event of the day was over. The Lord had come to Jerusalem, fulfilling the words of the prophet. His had been a triumphal entry, and for a little time it seemed, indeed, as if the world had gone after Him. Only He Himself knew how evanescent would be the feeling in his favor. Only He knew that some of the very tongues which had cried "Hosanna!" would in no long time be as ready to cry, "Crucify Him!" But there were other voices—innocent voices—to which the Lord could listen with delight. The little children in the temple, who had followed Him thither with their parents—possibly also those employed in the musical service—continued to repeat the shouts of the multitudes on the Mount of Olives, and the spacious courts resounded with their shrill hosannas. His enemies were all the more enraged, and would have silenced them, but the Lord refused, and justified their action. "Yea, have ye never heard, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise"? Nowadays the children's place in the temple is too often vacant. One sees but seldom what was once the most common of Sunday sights—the long, orderly rows of children, big and little, filling the pews on Sunday. I cannot recollect when I first went to church, but I well remember what a deprivation it was to be kept at home. If the morning service was thought too long for the very little ones, they were taken in the afternoon. But the afternoon service has been turned into the evening, when the children cannot come out (it being considered by careful mothers much more dangerous to take them to church than to dancing-school); and at the morning service the clergyman may look over twenty pews and not see half a dozen children.