“And may the lamb be the means of making the auld sheep to follow!” added the elder.
When the prayer was over, Jeanie, who had hardly spoken a word, said, without looking at the Doctor, “Oh, sir, God didna hear our prayer for my bairn!”
“Dinna speak that way, Jeanie woman!” said old David softly, yet firmly.
“I canna help it, father; I maun get oot my thochts that are burning at my heart. The minister maun forgie me,” replied Jeanie.
“Surely, Mrs. Thorburn,” said the Doctor; “and it would be a great satisfaction to me if I could, from what God has taught me from His Word, and from my experience of sorrow, be able to solve any difficulty, or help you to acquiesce in God’s dealings with you; not because you must, but because you ought to submit; not because God has power, and therefore does as He pleases, but because He is Love, and therefore pleases always to do what is right.”
“But, oh, He didna hear our prayer; that’s my battle! We were maybe wrang in asking what was against His wull.”
“Not in the way, perhaps, in which you expected, Mrs. Thorburn; yet every true prayer is verily heard and answered by Him. But He is too good, too wise, too loving, to give us always literally what we ask; if so, He would often be very cruel, and that He can never be. You would not give your child a serpent, if in his assurance he asked one, mistaking it for a fish; nor would you give him a stone for bread?”
The Doctor paused.
“When Nathan, the Lord’s prophet, telt King David that his child must die,” said Armstrong, “yet David even then prayed to the Lord to spare his life, and I dinna doot that his Father in heaven was pleased wi’ his freedom and faith.”
“Right,” continued the Doctor, “for I am sure we cannot trust Him too much, or open our human hearts to Him too freely; let us always remember, too, that when God refuses what we ask, He gives us something better—yea, far more than we can ask or think. He gave your dear child for a time; and if He has taken him away, can you, for example, tell the evil, the misery, which may have been prevented? How many parents would give worlds that their children had died in infancy! And you could not wish for more than your child’s good, and so God has thus far literally heard that prayer. He has done so by taking your child to Himself. Your precious jewel is not lost, but is in God’s treasury, where no thief can break through and steal; that is surely something.”