And to this Mrs. Frazee had made answer, "It is impossible!" and indeed it did seem impossible. Where was the money to come from for a journey?
Annie Frazee had been ill all winter; first it was the measles, then later the whooping-cough. How that cough did hang on! Day after day the child seemed to grow weaker, though they kept hoping for improvement. They were too poor to have constant medical attendance, but a kind-hearted physician who had been consulted when the cough had proved too obstinate to yield to the mother's nursing, had fallen into the habit of dropping in for a moment whenever he was in the neighborhood. It was one of those bright mornings of early spring. Doctor Emmons had been called to prescribe for Mrs. Murphy's baby. Mrs. Murphy lived away up at the top of the tall tenement house of which the Frazees occupied two rooms on the second floor. The doctor stopped for a few moments on his way down, and his quick professional eye noted immediately the change in Annie since his last call, and he made the plain statement which so distressed the poor mother.
"If it could be," she said over and over when Doctor Emmons had gone on his busy way, "but it is impossible!"
Suddenly as she was going sadly about taking up the work she must do, and repeating the sorrowful sentence, "It is impossible!" she seemed to hear a voice saying, "The things which are impossible with men, are possible with God."
The voice seemed far away, and though Mrs. Frazee was startled she soon realized that it was a memory of words she had read long ago, and as she reflected she knew that they were the words of Christ himself.
Away back in her girlhood Mrs. Frazee had professed to be a follower of Jesus. The good seed sown in her heart in the Sunday-school seemed to promise to bring forth fruit; but presently the pleasures of life, and afterwards the cares, crowded in upon her Christian life, until it seemed to have withered away. Dropping Christian duties one by one, putting away the privileges of a servant of God, she had for a long time been living away from Christ, struggling under her sorrows without aid from above. And that morning along with the memory of the words, "With God all things are possible," came the thought, "But this is not for me! I cannot claim anything from God; I have so long wandered from Christ, so long denied my Master that I have no right to come in his name asking for help!" Then after a little while thoughts of the prodigal came to her, and then by and by, stepping softly so as not to disturb Annie who had fallen into a light sleep, and saying in a whisper so faint that only the ear of the Infinite could hear, "I will arise and go to my Father," she passed into the other room, and, closing the door, knelt down alone with God to confess her sin and to plead for forgiveness. When did Christ ever turn away from a weary, burdened and repentant soul?