The last woman in White Raiment during the ministry of our Lord, is the widow with two mites. Her act of benevolence has associated with it many tender and pathetic touches. The circumstances, so far as they relate to the ministry of our Lord, are inexpressibly sad. He had come down to the last day of His public teaching, and the last hour of that ministry. Indeed the time of His departure from the Temple was at hand. He had taught in their streets, by the wayside, in desert places, in the Temple. He had wept over Jerusalem that had seen so many of His mighty works, and as in mental vision He saw the coming doom, He sobbed out, “Oh if thou hadst known ... the things which belong to thy peace!” But they refused to know, and had finally rejected Him as they had rejected His teaching. The very tears of the suffering Saviour broke out in great sobs of grief in the words, “_Ye would not!_” So, in the very last act, all efforts having failed, He exclaims, “Behold your house,” it was no longer God’s house, “is left unto you desolate!” As Jesus on that last day, and at the close of the last hour of the day, closed the door of mercy, how that word, “DESOLATE” must have sounded through its God-forsaken courts. At a time when such a burden of unrequited toil and sorrow was resting upon the grieved heart of Jesus, the touching incident of this poor widow comes to our view. Jesus had left the inner court of the Temple, and, on His way through the court of the women, paused over against the treasury to point out one more beautiful lesson to His disciples. The people were casting their offerings into the thirteen great chests set to receive their gifts. These offerings were gifts of the people, and had no reference to “tithes.” These Jews, though they had utterly failed to comprehend the “day of their visitation,” were, nevertheless, liberal givers. They did not content themselves with giving a tenth of their income. So it was the “freewill offering,” the love gifts, that Jesus was watching. Twice in Exodus, once in Deuteronomy and once in Leviticus had God commanded, “And none shall appear before Me empty.” Three times a year was every Jew required to come before the Lord, and not one time empty-handed. Never was there an exception for rich or for poor, for great or for small. Not a pauper from Dan to Beer-sheba, would have dared to come without his offerings. In these modern times a sickly sentimentality has well-nigh made void the commandment of God. He made no discrimination in favor of the poor. He that had little, gave little. He that had much, gave much. A lamb or a kid was an offering acceptable. If any were too poor to furnish either, “a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons” might be brought. If this was too much, a few “tablespoonfuls of fine flour” was enough, and any neighbor would furnish them these. The money value of gifts might be brought, but the law was inexorable, “None shall appear before Me