Part 35 (2/2)

As G.o.d leads me, will I go,-- Nor choose my way; Let Him choose the joy or woe Of every day: They cannot hurt my soul, Because in His control: I leave to Him the whole,-- His children may.

L. GEd.i.c.kE.

Why is it that we are so busy with the future? It is not _our_ province; and is there not a criminal interference with Him to whom it belongs, in our feverish, anxious attempts to dispose of it, and in filling it up with shadows of good and evil shaped by our own wild imaginations? To do G.o.d's will as fast as it is made known to us, to inquire hourly--I had almost said each moment--what He requires of us, and to leave ourselves, our friends, and every interest at His control, with a cheerful trust that the path which He marks out leads to our perfection and to Himself,--this is at once our duty and happiness; and why will we not walk in the plain, simple way?

WILLIAM E. CHANNING.

July 11

_When He giveth quietness, who then can make trouble_?--JOB x.x.xiv. 29.

_None of these things move me_.--ACTS xx. 24.

I've many a cross to take up now, And many left behind; But present troubles move me not, Nor shake my quiet mind.

And what may be to-morrow's cross I never seek to find; My Father says, ”Leave that to me, And keep a quiet mind.”

ANON.

Let us then think only of the present, and not even permit our minds to wander with curiosity into the future. This future is not yet ours; perhaps it never will be. It is exposing ourselves to temptation to wish to antic.i.p.ate G.o.d, and to prepare ourselves for things which He may not destine for us. If such things should come to pa.s.s, He will give us light and strength according to the need. Why should we desire to meet difficulties prematurely, when we have neither strength nor light as yet provided for them? Let us give heed to the present, whose duties are pressing; it is fidelity to the present which prepares us for fidelity in the future.

FRANcOIS DE LA MOTHE FeNELON.

Every hour comes with some little f.a.got of G.o.d's will fastened upon its back.

F. W. FABER.

July 12

_Be strong, and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid ... for the Lord thy G.o.d, He it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee_.--DEUT. x.x.xi. 6.

The timid it concerns to ask their way, And fear what foe in caves and swamps can stray, To make no step until the event is known, And ills to come as evils past bemoan.

Not so the wise; no coward watch he keeps To spy what danger on his pathway creeps; Go where he will, the wise man is at home, His hearth the earth,--his hall the azure dome; Where his clear spirit leads him, there's his road, By G.o.d's own light illumined and foreshowed.

R. W. EMERSON.

Though I sympathize, I do not share in the least the feeling of being disheartened and cast down. It is not things of this sort that depress me, or ever will. The contrary things, praise, openings, the feeling of the greatness of my work, and my inability in relation to it, these things oppress and cast me down; but little hindrances, and closing up of accustomed or expected avenues, and the presence of difficulties to be overcome,--I'm not going to be cast down by trifles such as these.

JAMES HINTON.

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