' H. Black, Christ's Service of Love, 210.
PSALM XXI. 3 365
^ We are rising to the conviction that we are a part of nature, and so a part of God ; that the whole creation — the One and the Many and All-One — is travailing together toward some great end ; and that now, after ages of development, we have at length become conscious portions of the great scheme, and can co-operate in it with knowledge and with joy. We are no aliens in a stranger universe governed by an outside God ; we are parts of a developing whole, all enfolded in an embracing and inter- penetrating love, of which we too, each to other, sometimes experience the joy too deep for words.^
^ There are inhospitable regions, in which the oak cannot flourish, in which the hardy pine cannot live, and in which the mountain heather finds no place, but yet some variety of corn can be made to grow, if man can live there at all. If you were to ascend from the sea-level to the sides of the high mountains, or to proceed from the swamps of China to the prairies of America, or from the burning plains of India to the Arctic regions, you would find at the different levels, or in the difi'erent" latitudes, entirc4y different kinds of plants, with one exception ; the corn plant you would find everywhere. In the tropical regions you would find rice ; in the bleak north, oats and rye ; in parts of the western world not congenial to wheat, you would find maize, while similar parts of Europe produce barley. So carefully has God provided for the needs of man.
2. These bounties of God come to us at a great cost. Take a single grain of corn, and remember that it cost the Creator thousands of years of forethought and labour. We know how useless it is to sow wheat on hard clay or solid rock. Soil needs first to be made, so God sets in motion the forces of rain, frost, and rivers. He sets the great glaciers grinding over the granite, sandstone, and limestone. And that took thousands of years. If God had not laboured for ages, not even the tiniest grain of corn could have existed to-day. But, further, the God who made the soil sends thousands of rays of sunshine to ripen the corn. And for every ray that we see, there are ten invisible heat rays. Now before these rays can begin their work, they have a journey to make of more than ninety millions of miles. And God keeps these messengers continually flying through the sky. He spares no labour and counts no cost to provide royally for His children.
' Sir Oliver Lodge.
366 THE MINISTRY OF SURPRISE
11.
A Peepaked Home.
1. Home is the child's whole world. Within the family circle lie his earth and heaven, and through the medium of its life and fortunes the larger provision accumulated out of doors is gradually interpreted and conveyed to him. To have first drawn breath, then, in a truly Christian home is to have been born to an inherit- ance which not all the world's wealth could buy. To have been received into this world by one whose first feeling was that of trembling thankfulness to God, mingled with fear lest she should be unworthy of the trust of bringing up a child for Him ; to have grown up within walls where He from whom every fatherhood in heaven and earth is named, was ever acknowledged supreme and reverently loved and served; to have been led to His footstool early, and to have had His word printed on the mind ; to have been taught to rest on the day of rest, and to " love the habitation of God's house"; to have been trained in early impressionable years, for the most part unconsciously, under the influence of those around, as well as of the men and women that come about a good man's fireside and the books that lie on a good man's table, — in all this what splendid provision for all who are fortunate enough to fall heirs to it. Truly God "prevented us with blessings of goodness." Our lot was stored with them beforehand. We were cradled in spiritual profusion which a Loving Care had been long preparing, as a mother's choicest appointments will be ready for her babe long before it is put into her hands.
•j[ Sometimes there comes a visitor to see us of whose coming we had no anticipation. He has been long abroad, and for years we have not seen him, until one day he is standing at our door. But it is not thus that into Christian homes there come the joy and mystery of childhood. The child is born in a prepared place, and love has been very busy with its welcome. And prayers go heavenward with a new intensity, and some now pray who never prayed before ; and fountains of tenderness are opened up, and feelings that were scarce suspected once; and God is nearer and His hand is more wonderful, and all the future has a
PSALM XXI. 3 2>^^
different music, and that is why home is as a type of heaven ; it is a prepared place for a prepared people. Thou goest before us with the blessings of goodness.^