There is a beautiful book, "The Upper Thames and Cotswolds," by a Mr. od. story of a small] village at which was situated a large lunatic asylum. One day, the village carpenter saw a man climb over the high wall surrounding. the asylum grounds, and drop down to the road. -A maniac escaping! The lunatic began to run, and so. did the carpenter. The lunatic, seeing the man running, gave chase, he carpenter ran and dodged, the madman still after him. He ran through the village brook; so did the madman. Up and down, in a wood and out of it," the wild chase went on, till the carpenter, utterly exhausted and winded to death, sank in a heap on the ground. And, horrors! the maniac leapt upon him in his exhausted state. Lhe poor man expected to be strangled, but all the lunatic did was to put his thumb on his body, and say, "Zig."" When the poor lunatic had seen the carpenter run, he thought the man was starting the boy's game of '"'Tig,'"' and he had joined in. So it often is in life. Events rush at us; we are going to be ruined and killed, but it is only Providence playing "Tig" with us. How often that happens!
The minister of my old church at Fish St., Hull, went there and remained 50 years from 1760 to 1810. He left a complete diary. About the year 1790, he has an entry to this effect (it was during the French wars), "The French have taken St. Eustasia'' (a West Indian island), then he goes on, "No doubt this kingdom. will go the way of Babylon and Rome and perish." But it has not. We still have a respectable empire How true it is that we fly the white flag at the first reverse. We are all like that, full of fears for ourselves, our country, our religion! How often has it been predicted by enemies of Christ' that the Gospel is decaying, and the Church is mouldy, but we still live. Some of the things predicted happen. Others do not. God never smothers us altogether in troubles.
So then let us begin the New Year, allowing for the probability that somehow, in God's good hands, many of the fears that haunt us now will not be justified. Then. again, Jesus teaches that fear and anxiety are in any case entirely useless. He says that, in any case, it is no good to worry and be full of fears. He says that there are some things that you cannot do. You may be as full of anxiety as you like, and worry as you like, but you cannot do anything. As an example, He says you cannot increase your height ("add a cvbit to your stature"). Then, what is the good of anxiety? This may seem too plain and commonsense an argument for the Lord to use. -We expect Him always to pitch His appeals on the loftiest level. He often does, but not when a
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.