Sonnet. 1851.
Special Providence. September 17.
If I did not believe in a special Providence, in a perpetual education of men by evil as well as good, by small things as well as great, I could believe nothing.
Letters and Memories.
Love of Work. September 18.
“Can you tell me, my pastor, what part of God’s likeness clings to a man longest and closest and best? No? Then I will tell you. It is the love of employment. God in heaven must create Himself a universe to work on and love. And now we sons of Adam, the sons of God, cannot rest without our mundus peculiaris of some sort—our world subjective, as Doctor Musophilus has it. But we can create too, and make our little sphere look as large as a universe.”
MS. Novel. 1844.
Fret not. September 19.
Fret not, neither be anxious. What God intends to do He will do. And what we ask believing we shall receive. Never let us get into the common trick of calling unbelief resignation, of asking and then, because we have not faith to believe, putting in a “Thy will be done” at the end. Let us make God’s will our will, and so say Thy will be done.
MS. 1843.