Yet Christ said that God was all-merciful and all-loving, and that He ordered the very falling of a single hair of our heads. But if God ordered that, then He did not leave unordered the qualities of our hearts and wills, and our very sins are of His devising. No, it is all dark and desperate; I do not know, I cannot know; I shall stumble to my end in ignorance; sometimes glad when a gleam of sunshine falls on my wearied limbs, sometimes wrapping my garments around me in cold and drenching rain. I am in the hand of God; I know that; and I hope that I may dare to trust Him; but my confidence is shaken as He passes over me, as the reed in the river shakes in the wind. February 18, 1891. A still February day, with a warm, steady sun, which stole in and caressed me, enveloping me in light and warmth, as I sate reading this morning. If I could be ashamed of anything, I should be ashamed of the fact that my body has all day long surprised me by a sort of indolent contentment, repeating over and over that it is glad to be alive. The mind and soul crave for death and silence. Yet all the while my faithful and useful friend, the body, seems to croon a low song of delight. That is the worst of it, that I seem built for many years of life. Shall I learn to forget? I walked long and far among the fields, in the fresh, sun-warmed air. Ah! the sweet world! Everything was at its barest and austerest--the grass thin in the pastures, the copses leafless. But such a sense of hidden life everywhere! I stood long beside the gate to watch the new-born lambs, whose cries thrilled plaintively on the air, like the notes of a violin. Little black-faced grey creatures, on their high, stilt-like legs--a week or two old, and yet able to walk, to gambol, to rejoice, in their way, to reflect. The bleating mothers moved about, divided between a deep desire to eat, and the anxious care of their younglings. One of them stood over her sleeping lamb, stamping her feet, to dismay me, no doubt, while the little creature lay like a folded door-mat on the pasture. Another brutally repelled the advances of a strange lamb, butting it over whenever it drew near; another chewed the cud, while its lamb sucked, its eyes half closed in contented joy, just turning from time to time to sniff at the little creature pressed close to its side. I felt as if I had never seen the sight before, this wonderful and amazing drama of life, beginning again year after year, the same, yet not the same. The old shepherd came out with his crook, said a few words to me, and moved off, the ewes following him, the lambs skipping behind. "He shall feed me in a green pasture, and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort." How perfectly beautiful and tender the image, a thing seen how many hundred years ago on the hills of Bethlehem, and touching the old heart just as it touches me to-day!