To those who know themselves, all things work together for good, and all things seem to be, as they are to them, good. The goods which God gives seem "very good," and God Himself in them, because they know that they deserve them not. The evils which God allows and overrules seem also "very good," because they see in them His loving hand, put forth to heal them of what shuts out God from the soul. They love God intensely, in that He is so good to them in each, and every, the least good, because it is more than they deserve: how much more in the greatest! They love God for every, and each, the very greatest of what seem evils, knowing them to be, from His love, real goods. For He by whom "all the hairs of our head are numbered," and who "knoweth whereof we are made," directs everything which befalls us in life, in perfect wisdom and love, to the well-being of our souls.
E. B. PUSEY.
April 16
The very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless. Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.—I THESS. v. 23, 24.
Be still, my soul!—the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief and pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide,—
In every change He faithful will remain.
HYMNS FROM THE LAND OF LUTHER.
It was no relief from temporal evils that the Apostle promised. No; the mercy of God might send them to the stake, or the lions; it was still His mercy, if it but kept them "unspotted from the world." It might expose them to insult, calumny, and wrong; they received it still as mercy, if it "established them in every good word and work." O brethren! how many of you are content with such faithfulness as this on the part of your heavenly Father? Is this, indeed, the tone and tenor of your prayers?
WM. ARCHER BUTLER.
The highest pinnacle of the spiritual life is not happy joy in unbroken sunshine, but absolute and undoubting trust in the love of God.