"'Let me judge of that,' said the woman; and stooping down, she picked up the miry rag, all torn and stained as it was, and carried it with her to her home. There she carefully washed it, and put it with other pieces of linen in a bag; and after a while, it was sold for a trifle to a manufacturer of paper." "If the rag had been a living creature, possessed of any feeling, much might it have complained of all that if had then to undergo. It was torn to pieces, reduced to shreds, beaten till it became quite a pulp; no one could have guessed who looked at it then that it had ever been linen at all. But what, my young friends, was the end of all this washing, and beating, and rending? At length a pure, white, beautiful sheet of paper lay beneath the manufacturer's hands; into this fair form had passed the rag which a child had called good for nothing!" "But the sheet was not to lie useless. Not in vain had it been made so white and clean. It was next carried to the press of a printer. There it was once more damped, so as better to receive an impression: then it was laid over blackened type (that is, letters cast in metal), and pressed down with a heavy roller, until every letter was clearly marked upon the smooth white surface. God's Holy Word had been stamped upon it, the sheet was to form a leaf of a Bible; such honour was given to the once soiled rag, which a child had called good for nothing!" "And where was this Bible to be; to what home and what heart was it to carry its message of mercy? It was bound, and gilded, and bought, and carried to the royal palace of the Queen. The Bible lay in the sovereign's chamber, it was opened by the sovereign's hand; her eye rested upon it as upon that which was more precious to her than her crown! What was it to her that a portion of the paper had once been a worn-out rag dropped by one of the meanest of her subjects? It had been washed, purified, changed, the Word of God had given it value; well might the Queen prize and love it as her best possession upon earth." "Dear friends," continued the lady, looking with loving interest on the listening groups before her, "can you not, trace out now a little parable in my story? Need I explain its meaning? There have been some neglected ones in the world, as little cared for, as little regarded as the rag which lay on the miry road. But who shall dare to say that even the soul most stained by sin, most sunk in evil, is good for nothing?"