By previous appointment and actual exact coincidence that meeting took
place between the hale comfortable priest and the wounded half-dead
traveller in the bloody path between Jerusalem and Jericho. It is thus
that all meetings take place between man and man. "The poor ye have
always with you," said Jesus to his disciples. It is not only that once
for all the poor and the rich are placed in the same world: but day by
day, as life's current flows, by divine unerring purpose those who need
are placed in the way of those who have plenty, and the strong are led
to the spot where the feeble lie. We are accustomed to admire the wisdom
and foresight that spread layers of iron ore and layers of coal near
each other in the crust of the earth that the one might give the melting
heat which the other needed; but the divine government is a much more
minute and pervading thing. The same omniscient provider has appointed
each meeting between those who are in want and those who have
abundance; and for the same reason, that the one may give what the other
needs, and that both may be blessed in the deed. But he who lays the
plan watches its progress, and is displeased when men do not take the
opportunity that has been given. When he has brought the strong to the
spot where the weak are lying he is displeased to see them pass by on
the other side. "Lo, I am with you alway even unto the end of the
world." Is that a pleasant promise? No; if after the Lord has led you to
the spot where the needy are perishing, you pass by on the other side;
it is a dreadful thing to have him beside us, looking on in such a case
as this.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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