Country life -- Fiction; Vicars, Parochial -- England -- Fiction
“But we do see people die of starvation sometimes,—Yes. But if you did
your work in God’s name, and left the rest to Him, that would not
trouble you. You would say, If it be God’s will that I should starve, I
can starve as well as another. And your mind would be at ease. “Thou
wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon Thee, because
he trusteth in Thee.” Of that I am sure. It may be good for you to go
hungry and bare-foot; but it must be utter death to have no faith in
God. It is not, however, in God’s way of things that the man who does
his work shall not live by it. We do not know why here and there a man
may be left to die of hunger, but I do believe that they who wait upon
the Lord shall not lack any good. What it may be good to deprive a man
of till he knows and acknowledges whence it comes, it may be still
better to give him when he has learned that every good and every
perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.
“I SHOULD like to know a man who just minded his duty and troubled
himself about nothing; who did his own work and did not interfere with
God’s. How nobly he would work—working not for reward, but because it
was the will of God! How happily he would receive his food and
clothing, receiving them as the gifts of God! What peace would be his!
What a sober gaiety! How hearty and infectious his laughter! What a
friend he would be! How sweet his sympathy! And his mind would be so
clear he would understand everything His eye being single, his whole
body would be full of light. No fear of his ever doing a mean thing. He
would die in a ditch, rather. It is this fear of want that makes men do
mean things. They are afraid to part with their precious lord—Mammon.
He gives no safety against such a fear. One of the richest men in
England is haunted with the dread of the workhouse. This man whom I
should like to know, would be sure that God would have him liberal, and
he would be what God would have him. Riches are not in the least
necessary to that. Witness our Lord’s admiration of the poor widow with
her great farthing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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