WITH CHRIST IN INDOCHINA - IndoChina1911

udget was checked with the cash in hand, it was
found that there lacked eighteen piastres. It was
hard times, and the missionary allowance that month
had been only fifty per cent. A few weeks before a
friend had said that a great many French people
were selling their household furniture and returning
to France because of the financial depression. He
said that at the auction, which is held twice each
week in Saigon, pianos had been sold for almost
nothing. The missionaries had been desirous of
having a piano for their children, so they told this
friend, that if he saw any such bargains again he
should bid on one for them. This week, when funds
were so insufficient, he came saying that he had
bought one for only twenty piastres. Cheap enough,
but it would require just thirty-eight piastres more
than the missionaries had to pay for it. The next
day the missionaries went to the auction and found
that it would cost at least five piastres more to bring
the piano home. They told the auctioneer to sell it
again at the next auction. To their surprise, it
brought forty-two piastres, just enough, after paying
the commission for buying and another for selling,
to yield eighteen piastres clear profit. It was the
Lord's way of balancing the budget.