The Difficult Times May Make Us More Earnest

February 6.

Whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.

PROVEBS 29, verse 25.


I will cry unto God most high;
unto God, that performeth all things for me.

PSALM 57, verse 2.


Only thy restless heart keep still,
And wait in cheerful hope; content
To take whate'er His gracious will,
His all-discerning love hath sent;
Nor doubt our inmost wants are known
To Him who chose us for His own.

G. NEUMARK.


God has brought us into this time;
He, and not ourselves or some dark demon.
If we are not fit to cope with that which He
has prepared for us, we should have been
utterly unfit for any condition that we imagine
for ourselves. In this time we are to live and
wrestle, and in no other. Let us humbly,
tremblingly, manfully look at it, and we shall
not wish that the sun could go back its ten
degrees, or that we could go back with it. If
easy times are departed, it is that the difficult
times may make us more in earnest; that they
may teach us not to depend upon ourselves.
If easy belief is impossible, it is that we may
learn what belief is, and in whom it is to be placed.

F. D. MAURICE.