Dr. Manson's Gifts from Patients
Story★★★★Do you remember in A. J. Cronin’s The Citadel, how on that Christmas Eve the doctor came home from his rounds and found the presents his patients had sent? None of them had great intrinsic value.
But as he looked at them and saw how an old widow had, out of her penury, struggled to offer something to show her gratitude, Andrew Manson’s heart was full to overflowing and those gifts meant more to him than fat cheques or costly presents. It is only so that worship can find its true expression. When the Master commended the widow who had dropped two mites into the treasury, He made it clear that the reason why the gift was acceptable to God was not because it was a similar proportion of her income to that which other wealthier folk gave out of their income.
It was because the woman could only give her gift as a result of costly sacrifice.
The point
In Cronin's novel, Doctor Manson receives gifts from patients; an elderly widow's modest offering means more than expensive presents because of her sacrifice.