If we could cast our care on Thee,
If we from self could rest ; And feel at heart that One above,
In perfect wisdom, perfect love,
Is working for the best.^
2. We need have no fear that the abandonment of our anxieties will leave us unprovided or undefended. Better provision will be made for us than we could possibly have contrived for ourselves. This is the wealth and the wonder of God's compassion. Faithful hearts are not only freed from the painful pack that galled them, but, as if their deliverance were not enough, and as if one blessing were only a groundwork for another, the oversight and the foresight they needed are thence- forth furnished for them; patient and willing shoulders receive the load we threw down; eyes of sharper vigilance than ours watch for us. Simply because we are willing to loosen our troubles and let them fly, we have not only peace but plenty. Divine energies that never weary, fidelity that never flags, wisdom that never errs, and affections that never droop or wander, uphold us.
If the father is providing for to-morrow's needs, why should his little boy leave his play, and lean pensively against the wall, wondering what had better be done ? If the pilot has come on board, why should the captain also pace the deck with weary foot ? If some wise, strong friend, thoroughly competent, has undertaken to adjust some difficult piece of perplexity for me, and if I have perfect confidence in him, and he assures me that he is well able to accomplish it, why should I fret longer ? The thing is as good as done, since he has taken it in hand.
(1) God's care is the care of a Father. — The God whom we need to help our care is the Father whom Jesus discovered to men. He Himself grasped at multitudes, but He dealt with individuals, giving Himself to each as if there were no other in the world, and emboldening St. Thomas and all the host of his successors in the use of singular pronouns, " My Lord and my God," said St. Thomas ;
^ S. L. "Wilson, Helpful Words for Daily Lifc^ 19,
142 HUMAN ANXIETY AND DIVINE CARE
" He gave himself for me," said St. Paul. For there was nothing indiscriminate or impersonal in the ways of Jesus, and He taught men that each one of them counts as a separate person with God. If that is true it carries with it everything. The good news takes the sting out of all that men call evil fortune. If He spared not His Son, He will surely with Him give us all things freely. That is the God whom Jesus has brought to us, and in whom we may rest without dismay.
My child is lying on my knees,
The signs of Heaven she reads: My face is all the Heaven she sees —
Is all the Heaven she needs.
And she is well, yea, bathed in bliss,
If Heaven is in my face — Behind it all is tenderness.
And truthfulness and grace.
I mean her well so earnestly,
Unchanged in changing mood ; My life would go without a sigh
To bring her something good,
I also am a child, and I
Am ignorant and weak ; I gaze upon the starry sky. And then I must not speak.
For all behind the starry sky,
Behind the world so broad, Behind men's hearts and souls, doth lie
The Infinite of God.
If true to her, though dark with doubt
I cannot choose but be, Thou, who dost see all round about,
Art surely true to me.
If I am low and sinful, bring
More love where need is rife ; Thou knowest what an awful thing
It is to be a Life.
I PETER V. 7 143
Hast Thou not wisdom to enwrap
My waywardness around, And hold me quietly on the lap
Of Love without a bound ?
And 80 I sit in Thy wide space,
My child upon my knee ; She looketh up into my face,
And I look up to Thee.^
(2) He is a God who considers the least as much as the greatest. — There is a tendency in the human mind to treat God in a wrong way, as " such an one as ourselves." We are impressed by size, by immensity, by that which in some overwhelming manner touches the imagination. The lofty mountains, the far-expanding sea, the rolling thunders, the immensity of space, the stretching years of time — these touch us. We allow ourselves to suppose that God indeed in His greatness can be moved by a thought of innumerable material worlds, but scarcely by a human anxiety. We do dis- honour to God. True greatness consists not only in command of vast views, but also in grasp of details. God's glorious work is as glorious in the colouring of the grass and the painting of the flowers as in the outline of the varied landscape. We are unjust to God, and we must feel that we are unjust if we allow ourselves to think at all. From our better self we read something of His character.
Will the father who is employed all day in dealing with some vast system of accounts, or some scheme for a nation's progress, be really less earnest about the sick child by whose bed he kneels when he is home again at night ? Will the man who has to fulfil many functions all day long, meet the demands of business, bend his mind to give a dozen judgments, write letters arranging various matters of large interest, which involve many responsibilities — will he really be less earnest about the joys and sorrows of the little girl who has her perplexities or troubles in the schoolroom, about the boy who is separated from him and at some humble work across rolling seas and distant continents ?