An old man, going a lone highway,
Came at the evening cold and gray
To a chasm vast, and deep, and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The angry stream held no fears for him.
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow traveler near,
“You are wasting strength with building here!
Your journey is over with the ending day.
You never again must pass this way.
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you a bridge at the eventide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head.
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There follows after me today
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim.
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”
                                   Will Allen Dromgooles

t’s a cold day in December in New York City. A little boy about ten years old was standing before a shoe store on Broadway, barefooted, peering through the window and shivering with cold. A lady approached the boy and said, “My little fellow, why are you looking so earnestly in that window?”
      “I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes,” was the boy’s reply.
      The lady took him by the hand, went into the store, and asked the clerk to get a half dozen pairs of socks for the boy. She then asked if he could give her a basin of warm water and a towel. He quickly brought them to her. She took the little fellow to the back part of the store and, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed his little feet, and dried them with a towel. By this time, the clerk had returned with the socks.
      Placing a pair upon the boy’s feet, she then purchased a pair of shoes for him, and tying up the remaining pairs of socks, gave them to him. She patted him on the head, and said, “No doubt, my little fellow, you feel more comfortable now?”
      As she turned to go, the astonished lad caught her by the hand and looking into her face with tears in his eyes, he answered the question with these words: “Are you God’s wife?”

—Author unknown

A sacrifice never dies,
And love is never lost.
It will live on in the hearts of those who     received it.
It will be an influence for good on those who     beheld it.
It will give grace to those who understood it.
And it will bless the heart of he who gave it.
Love is never lost—it is forever.

—Chloe West