Some people are always worrying. It would seem that they must enjoy it, for they always find something to worry about. If one good matter for worrying is settled they will be sure to rake up another to take its place. Some of them worry about temporal matters, some about spiritual; but whatever their taste may be in this respect, they are so fond of the amusement that, if they cannot get their favorite matter to worry about, they will take something else rather than not have any at all.

You would think that this taste for worrying would be a very uncommon one; but, strange to say, it is not so. In fact, the number of worriers is almost as great as the number of people in the world, and they are worrying about every conceivable thing, though generally only about one thing at a time; it may be about their sins or about somebody else's sins—their children's, for instance—or it may be, and is more likely to be, about some temporal matter, such as their health or the state of their worldly affairs.

Now, what do I mean by worrying? I do not mean thinking seriously about things either spiritual or temporal—for a great many, though not all, of the things people worry about are worthy of serious consideration, whereas nothing is worth a moment's worry—but I do mean thinking about them in a way that can do no good, and that only serves to turn the mind in on itself and away from God.

Here, for instance, is a case of worrying, to which I have just alluded: A good father and mother have children who are growing up, as so many children are growing up, especially in this city, in neglect of their duties and are acquiring various bad habits. Of course this is very painful to their parents, and there is very good reason that it should be. They would be unnatural or wicked parents if it were not so. They ought to be distressed about it; and I did not say that people should never be distressed, but only that they should not worry. But these parents probably do worry. They occupy their minds with all sorts of useless questions and imaginations. They say: "What have I done that these children of mine are so bad?" And perhaps, though they ask this question, they never really stop to examine themselves and find out if they have neglected their own duty in any way, so as to make an act of contrition for it, and make good resolutions, if it be not too late, for the future. What they mean rather by it is: "How can God allow this when I have done my duty?" And then they say: "Suppose these children get worse and disgrace my name, and even, lose their souls—what shall I do then?" Or perhaps they say: "What shall I do now?" But that does not really mean anything, for either they do not set their wits to work to find out what they can do, or they have concluded with good reason that they cannot do anything except pray; and that they do not do, for their time of prayer is taken up with this same useless worrying.

Now, what does all this come from? It comes from a distrust in God's love and providence. It comes from a feeling like what the apostles had, as we read in to-day's Gospel, as if He who ought to take care of them were asleep; but they ought to have known, as their own psalms could have taught them, that "He shall neither slumber nor sleep that keepeth Israel." Even though they knew him not to be God, they should have known that God, who had sent him into the world, and on whom their faith in him rested, would not allow them to come to any harm; and they should have been willing, when they had done their own duty, to trust in his providence for the rest. They might, indeed, well have waked him to get his help and advice as to what to do; but he, who read their hearts, knew that their anxiety had its source, not in prudence, but in distrust, and so he deservedly rebuked them, saying: "Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?"

That is the reason why we, like the apostles, are worrying. It is because we have little faith. We distrust God's providence and mercy, and spend our time in this distrust and complaining, instead of quietly finding out and doing our own duty, and then simply and confidently leaving the result to him. But we have less excuse for it than they, for we know more of him than they did then. Let us, then, be ashamed of our want of faith, and try to do better in this respect for the future.

Sermon XXVI.

And behold, a great tempest arose in the sea.
—St. Matthew viii. 24.

Almost all of us, my dear brethren, have at some time of life been in a position like that of the apostles in their little boat on the Sea of Galilee. We have been out at sea in a storm, with the waves beating against our frail craft and threatening to swamp it every moment. So we do not need to draw on our imagination to realize what their feelings must have been.