Where had his strength lain
before he lost it? Could that ever have been HIS which he could not
keep? If a thing were ours, nothing could ever take it from us! Was
his strength ever his then? Yes, for God had given it him. Then he
could not have lost it! He had it still! The branches of it were
gone, but the root remained, hid in God. All was well. If God chose
that his child should lie there, for this day, and to-morrow, or
till the next year, or if it pleased him that he should never rise
again with the same body, was that a thing to trouble him? He
turned his back on the ugly room, and was presently fast asleep
again.
Not a few read the poems of a certain king brought up a shepherd
lad. From Sunday to Sunday they read them. Amongst them, in their
turn, they read these: "I will both lay me down in peace and sleep,
for thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell in safety." Yet not only do
these readers never have such a feeling in their own hearts in
consequence, but they never even imagine that David really had it
in his. Deeper and grander things still, uttered by this same
shepherd-warrior, do they read, and yet in their wisdom will
declare it preposterous that any Scotch lad should have such a
feeling towards God as I have represented! "Doth God care for
oxen?" says St. Paul. Doth God care for kings? I ask, or for
Jew-shepherds? Or does he not care all over for all of us--oxen and
kings and sparrows and Scotch lairds? According to such blind
seers, less is to be expected of humanity since the son of David
came, than it was capable of in his father David.
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