If you have been accustomed to hear the clergyman's letter from which I have just been quoting, as if it were itself the word of God,--you have been accustomed also to hear our bad translation of it go on saying, "If it be sanctified by the Word of God, and prayer." But there is nothing whatever about prayer in the clergyman's letter,--nor does he say, If it be sanctified. He says, "For it is sanctified by the Word of God, and the chance that brings it." [102] Which means, that when meat comes in your way when you are hungry, or drink when you are thirsty, and you know in your own conscience that it is good for you to have it, the meat and drink are holy to you. But if the Word of God in your heart is against it, and you know that you would be better without the extra glass of beer you propose to take, and that your wife would be the better for the price of it, then it is unholy to you: and you can only have the sense of entire comfort and satisfaction, either in having it, or going without it, if you are simply obeying the Word of God about it in your mind, and accepting contentedly the chances for or against it; as probably you have heard of Sir Philip Sidney's accepting the chance of another soldier's needing his cup of water more than he, on his last battle-field, and instantly obeying the Word of God coming to him on that occasion. Not that it is intended that the supply of these good creatures of God should be left wholly to chance; but that if we observe the proper laws of God concerning them, and, for instance, instead of forbidding marriage, duly and deeply reverence it, then, in proper time and place, there will be true Fors, or chancing on, or finding of, the youth and maid by each other, such in character as the Providence of Heaven appoints for each: and, similarly, if we duly recognize the laws of God about meats and drinks, there will for every labourer and traveller be such chancing upon meat and drink and other entertainment as shall be sacredly pleasant to him. And there cannot indeed be at present imagined a more sacred function for young Christian men than that of hosts or hospitallers, supplying, to due needs, and with proper maintenance of their own lives, wholesome food and drink to all men: so that as, at least, always at one end of a village there may be a holy church and vicar, so at the other end of the village there may be a holy tavern and tapster, ministering the good creatures of God, so that they may be sanctified by the Word of God and His Providence.