"Then we ought not to be miserable about them, even if there comes a storm, ought we?" "No, surely. And, besides, I think if we could help any of them, the very persons that enjoyed the storm the most would be the busiest to rescue them from it. At least, I fancy so. But isn't the tea ready?" "Yes, papa. I'll just go and tell mamma." When she returned with her mother, and the children had joined us, Wynnie resumed the talk. "I know what I am going to say is absurd, papa, and yet I don't see my way out of it--logically, I suppose you would call it. What is the use of taking any trouble about them if they are in God's hands? Why should we try to take them out of God's hands?" "Ah, Wynnie! at least you do not seek to hide your bad logic, or whatever you call it. Take them out of God's hands! If you could do that, it would be perdition indeed. God's hands is the only safe place in the universe; and the universe is in his hands. Are we not in God's hands on the shore because we say they are in his hands who go down to the sea in ships? If we draw them on shore, surely they are not out of God's hands." "I see--I see. But God could save them without us." "Yes; but what would become of us then? God is so good to us, that we must work our little salvation in the earth with him. Just as a father lets his little child help him a little, that the child may learn to be and to do, so God puts it in our hearts to save this life to our fellows, because we would instinctively save it to ourselves, if we could. He requires us to do our best." "But God may not mean to save them." "He may mean them to be drowned--we do not know. But we know that we must try our little salvation, for it will never interfere with God's great and good and perfect will. Ours will be foiled if he sees that best." "But people always say, when anyone escapes unhurt from an accident, 'by the mercy of God.' They don't say it is by the mercy of God when he is drowned."