And so the busy days went on, dressmaking, house-cleaning, calling,
canning, pickling, parties, pottery, and fancy work, time for it all.
How could one think much about such far-away interests as heathen
women when her hands and heart were so full?

Sometimes we call such "Marthas," and make light of the fact that we
have loaded ourselves down with such heavy burdens, and take comfort
in the thought that one of the women whom Jesus loved was in the same
condemnation; but we forget that her anxious housewifely cares were
for Jesus. Dare we say as much for ours?

One morning Mrs. Williams was not bustling about with her usual
activity. She sat in her own room with a grave, troubled face. She
was in deep thought, and it was not some scheme for adding to her
wardrobe, or the furnishings of her house, that formed the subject
of her meditations. Perhaps the days are not past when the Lord
speaks to a soul "in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep
sleep falleth upon men." Mrs. Williams was not a nervous woman, full
of strange fancies, and her dreams heretofore had been passed by as
idle phantasies of the brain, but the remarkable and solemn one of
the previous night could not be so dismissed, and like one of old,
her "spirit was troubled."

In her dream, the day had come for her to die, and leave her busy
work for evermore. She could recall it all most vividly, the flash of
surprise, the anguish, the feeling that she was not ready, the swift
searching of her heart to find her hope, the feeble despairing cry,
Oh Christ, forgive me! the weeping friends, not heeded in the
all-absorbing thoughts, "What is this? Where am I going?"