Our conceptions of Providence are vital, therefore. They really determine what our life is to be, and they are an index to the life that is finished. It is impossible that we should be quite the same whether we try to eliminate God from our lives, or allow His blessed influence to cheer and lead us on; whether we look upon Him as a cold Master, waiting to exact and to punish, or as a kind Father and Shepherd, seeking to spare and to save; whether we regard Him as hid far in the heavens, caring naught for the creatures and the world He has made, or whether we conceive Him as intimately bound up with all the works of His hands, although distinct from them, as guiding and regulating everything, as tenderly loving and providing for all the needs of our souls. Another most harmful result of deficient faith and confidence in God is that it leads us to trust in creatures. It causes us to reverse the proper order of things. We are dependent beings, and we instinctively feel our deficiencies and the need of some one, or something on which to lean, at times, and to which we can look for assistance. We may not be entirely and always conscious of this tendency in us, we may be too proud or too blind to admit it, or we may wish we could overcome it and rid our lives of so constant a need; but whether we see it and acknowledge it or not, whether we encourage it or try to repress it, the need is always there, deeply engraved in our nature as creatures, and we cannot but seek to satisfy it. There is none of us, frail beings that we are, who is entirely sufficient unto himself. Sometimes, of course, the voice of our needs is silent, and we feel that we shall never want; “I said in my abundance,” observes the Psalmist, “I shall not be moved forever;”(86) but when the tide begins to ebb and prosperity subsides, how soon do we remember that we are dust! How frequently in times of trouble, in times of illness and poverty and suffering, when face to face with our foes, or when death steps in and slaughters, are we made aware of our insufficiency, and of our utter helplessness to live our lives alone and meet single-handed the burdens and misfortunes of earth! It takes but a little frost to nip the root of all our greatness, and then when our high-blown pride breaks under us we quickly realize how fragile and insecure are the personal foundations of our lives. Naturally and reasonably, therefore, did the pagan philosophers conclude that friendship and friends were necessary to man.