Lord, in this dust Thy sovereign voice
First quicken'd love divine ; I am all Thine, — Thy care and choice,
My very praise is Thine.
I praise Thee, while Thy providence
In childhood frail I trace. For blessings given, ere dawning sense
Could seek or scan Thy grace;
Blessings in boyhood's marvelling hour, Bright dreams, and fancyings strange;
Blessings, when reason's awful power Gave thought a bolder range ;
Blessings of friends, which to my door
Unask'd, unhoped, have come; And, choicer still, a countless store
Of eager smiles at home.
Yet, Lord, in memory's fondest place
I shrine those seasons sad. When, looking up, I saw Thy face
In kind austereness clad.
I would not miss one sigh or tear,
Heart-pang, or throbbing brow; Sweet w^as the chastisement severe,
And sweet its memory now. ^ Dean Hole.
JOB XI. 7 33
Yes ! let the fragrant scars abide,
Love-tokens in Thy stead, Faint shadows of the spear-pierced side
And thorn-encompass'd head.
And such Thy tender force be still, When self would swerve or stray,
Shaping to truth the froward will Along Thy narrow way.
Deny me wealth ; far, far remove
The lure of power or name ; Hope thrives in straits, in weakness love,
And faith in this world's shame.^
3. Patience. — This is the question to which a man must get the answer before he can work against evil and on the side of enduring good, viz. : not, Why does evil exist ? but Why has not God thrown a clear light upon the problem of its existence ? That is the question which he is bound to face or he must be for ever useless — he can never understand God's ways or know God Himself. There is a mighty and loving Being whose object is to educate us into likeness with Himself. That is the fundamental postulate. Why then has He not told us what we want to know, viz., why there is evil at all ? The Christian answer is that He has given us this problem to work at for the sake of our education, in order that through thinking about it and working at it, certain powers, which we call spiritual, might be developed — powers by which we draw near to Him now, and shall come to be like Him hereafter. God did not set us this hard sum to work at merely in order to puzzle us. He set it us in order that we might in our working at it, even through our sense of despair in solving it, become what He meant us to be, that we might be trained in inmost character. When we become like Him, when the conditions of this life are changed into those of the fuller life, the fog will lift, and by means of the fuller life the question will be answered and the problem solved. In the meantime the very question which we took to be a kind of hindrance, because we could not find the answer to it, turns out to be a means of educa- tion— is calling out our strongest powers, is preparing us for find- ing the answer in another life. This is the Christian theory : and ' J. H. Newman, "Occasional Verses."
JOB-PS. XXX. — 3
34 THE DEEPS OF GOD
starting from it, vast numbers of men and women are working for good against evil at the present day ; they have their share of those difficulties with a monopoly of which frivolous critics often credit themselves ; they feel those difficulties amid surrounding evil and intensified sufferings, and feel them acutely ; but nevertheless they go on living their lives in a useful and a noble fashion ; and they recognize that the very existence of this insoluble problem, when once they take up arms and play the man, does help them, does educate them, does call out from them nobler powers and more enduring virtue, and a more resolute patience than were otherwise possible.
^ Patience, thou blessed attribute ! How could we get on without thee ? How we wo aid worry and fret this miserable life away but for thy benign help. It is among the ranks of the poor and lowly that we see that grace in most frequent and most beautiful operation. I never return from visiting my poor sick people without learning a lesson of thankfulness from them. They are bo patient under suffering, so thankful for the least attention, so submissive to God's sovereign will. I suspect that it still holds true that " God hath chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He hath promised to them that love Him." ^
I, and the Bird,
And the Wind together, Sang a supplication
In the winter weather.
The Bird sang for sunshine,
And trees of winter fruit. And for love in the springtime.
When the thickets shoot.
And I sang for patience
When the tear-drops start; Clean hands and clear eyes.
And a faithful heart.
And the Wind thereunder,
As we faintly cried. Breathed a bass of wonder,
Blowing deep and wide.^
» Dr. MacQregor of St. CutJiberts, 127.
* A. 0. Benson, Lord Vyet and Other Poems.
Trust Inextinguishable.
Literature.
Askew (E. A.), The Semce of Perfect Freedom, 68.
Bennie (J. N.), The Eternal Life, 179.