Be like the bird that, halting in her flight Awhile on boughs too slight, Feels them give way beneath her and yet sings-- Knowing that she hath wings. --Victor Hugo. Let not your heart be troubled, Jesus said; Let not your heart be troubled or afraid. My peace into your hands I freely give; Trust in your God, and in his precepts live. Thunder, lightning, fire and rain, Poverty, sorrow, loss and gain, Death and heaven, and earth and hell, For us must work together well. With patient course thy path of duty run God nothing does, or suffers to be done, But thou wouldst do the same if thou couldst see The end of all events as well as he. I welcome all thy sovereign will, For all that will is love; And when I know not what thou dost, I wait the light above. GOD'S CARE PROVIDENCE, GOD'S KNOWLEDGE AND BENEFICENCE CONSIDER THE RAVENS Lord, according to thy words, I have considered thy birds; And I find their life good, And better, the better understood; Sowing neither corn nor wheat They have all that they can eat; Reaping no more than they sow They have more than they could stow; Having neither barn nor store, Hungry again they eat more. Considering, I see too that they Have a busy life, but plenty of play; In the earth they dig their bills deep, And work well, though they do not heap; Then to play in the way they are not loth, And their nests between are better than both. But this is when there blow no storms, When berries are plenty in winter, and worms, When feathers are rife, with oil enough To keep the cold out and send the rain off; If there come, indeed, a long, hard frost, Then it looks as though thy birds were lost. But I consider further and find A hungry bird has a free mind; He is hungry to-day, but not to-morrow, Steals no comfort, no grief doth borrow; This moment is his, thy will hath said it, The next is nothing till Thou hast made it. The bird has pain, but has no fear-- Which is the worst of any gear; When cold and hunger and harm betide him, He does not take them and stuff inside him; Content with the day's ill he has got, He waits just, nor haggles with his lot; Neither jumbles God's will With driblets from his own still. But next I see, in my endeavor, The birds here do not live forever; That cold or hunger, sickness or age, Finishes their earthly stage; The rooks drop in cold nights, Leaving all their wrongs and rights; Birds lie here and birds lie there With their feathers all astare; And in thine own sermon, thou That the sparrow falls dost allow.