empty-handed”--none at these great feasts. At all other times they might be brought, at these they must. So while the people brought their offerings, “Jesus sat over against the treasury.” He noted carefully each person, and the ability of each one, as the long line of contributors moved forward toward the treasury. No one escaped His notice. The rich, from their mansions of luxury, rulers of the people, clad in costly robes, stately Pharisees, nobles, grand and lordly, jingling with ornaments of their social standing, swept over the tessellated floor to the treasury as if by special training for that particular occasion; and there, from soft white hands whose fingers were decked in gold, cast into the treasure chests such offering as their liberality prompted. Among the throng came a “certain poor widow.” No one knew who she was, or where she came from. Gliding so softly that no ear heard her footfall, and shying so timidly that no eyes but His saw her, until her hand was over the trumpet-shaped mouths through which the money was cast into the chests. She deliberately of her “penury cast in all her living that she had.” How much was that? Mark tells us her offering consisted of “two mites, which make a farthing.” They were the smallest copper coin, and the two were equivalent to two-fifths of a cent of our money. As these two mites slid down the narrow tube of the trumpet-shaped aperture into the chest below, they did not ring as did the gold and silver pieces of the rich, but they rang to the echo in our Lord’s ears. She was a “poor widow” before this contribution, but now she is an utter bankrupt. If she ever had any financial standing, this rash act of giving swept it all away. She would have to go without her supper, for there was no opportunity, at the Passover time, to earn money. On the contrary, it was a time for spending it. These great conventions absorbed the small earnings of poor people. But such sacrifices never go unrewarded, and that poor widow had her supper through some God-appointed channel. Jesus was so well pleased with her gift, and the faith which prompted it, that He called the attention of His disciples to this act of benevolence, and said, “This poor widow had cast in more than all they.” Not more money. Two mites can not be more than the “abundance” of the rich. How more, then? All gifts have double value--their commercial and their representative value. They represent the self-denial, the faith and the love of the giver. In the markets of the world the two mites would hardly have been looked at, but in the eyes of the King they represented more than all. “Ah! He knew of want and hunger, Grief and care, and sorrow too; And the widow’s paltry farthing Cost a sacrifice He knew. So all fruits of self-denial Are the gifts He loves the best; Not the richest or most costly Are the offerings most blest!”