"When I have attempted," says Emerson, "to give myself to others by services, it proved an intellectual trick--no more. They eat your services like apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel you and delight in you all the time." When we love others we can help them in all deep and true ways. We can put blessings into their hearts instead of merely into their hands. We can enter into their very being, becoming new breath of life to them,--quickening, inspiration, impulse. "What is the best a friend can be To any soul, to you or me? Not only shelter, comfort, rest-- Inmost refreshment unexpressed; Not only a beloved guide To thread life's labyrinth at our side, Or with love's torch lead on before; Though these be much, there yet is more. "The best friend is an atmosphere Warm with all inspirations dear, Wherein we breathe the large, free breath Of life that hath no taint of death. Our friend is an unconscious part Of every true beat of our heart; A strength, a growth, whence we derive God's health, that keeps the world alive." There is a touching and very suggestive story of a good woman in Sweden, who opened a home for crippled and diseased children--children for whom no one else was ready to care. In due time she received into her home about twenty of these unfortunate little ones. Among them was a boy of three years, who was a most frightful and disagreeable object. He resembled a skeleton. His skin was covered with hideous blotches and sores. He was always whining and crying. This poor little fellow gave the good lady more care and trouble than all the others together. She did her best for him, and was as kind as possible--washed him, fed him, nursed him. But the child was so repulsive in his looks and ways, that, try as she would, she could not bring herself to like him, and often her disgust would show itself in her face in spite of her effort to hide it. She could not really love the child. One day she was sitting on the veranda steps with this child in her arms. The sun was shining brightly, and the perfume of the autumn honeysuckles, the chirping of the birds, and the buzzing of the insects, lulled her into a sort of sleep. Then in a half-waking, half-dreaming state, she thought of herself as having changed places with the child, and as lying there, only more foul, more repulsive in her sinfulness than he was. Over her she saw the Lord Jesus bending, looking lovingly into her face, yet with an expression of gentle rebuke in his eye, as if he meant to say, "If I can bear with you who are so full of sin, surely you ought, for my sake, to love that innocent child who suffers for the sin of his parents."