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It is not by human judgments that we are to stand or fall. It is happy that this is the case; that the good man hath a judge more just and candid than his fellow servants; one who knows and pities his weakness, though he hath none of his own: "Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are great; and let me not fall into the hand of man."
Hence, the Apostle exclaims in the twelfth of Romans, "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." The Christian must offer also his continual testimony. He must "hold fast the confession of his faith without wavering."
So we let the great beasts be, only shooting one or two in self-protection. In this district, the elephants, being unacquainted with the hunter and his tender mercies, would allow one to walk up to within twenty yards of them in the open, while they stood, with their great ears cocked for all the world like puzzled and gigantic puppy-dogs, and stared at that new and extraordinary phenomenon man.
Lady Charlton did not wonder how Rose felt now. Rose, she thought, was wonderful; life was full of mercies; there was so much to be thankful for; and could not those who had suffered be of great consolation to others in sorrow? They arranged to meet at Evensong in St. Paul's Chapel, and then Lady Charlton would come back and stay the night.
Must it not be, that the innumerable sum of God's mercies has not to have subtracted from it, but has to have added to it, the sum which also at intervals appears to us innumerable, of our sorrows and our burdens? Perhaps the explanation does not go to the bottom of the bottomless, but it goes a long way down towards it.
At the beginning of his twelfth chapter he passes from his discussion of justification by faith to speak of the proper effects of faith in the Christian life: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice." Then comes the noblest summary of duty to be found in all literature.
There was land of the finest quality to be had for next to nothing; work for all who were blessed with good bone and muscle; a constant demand for labour skilled or unskilled at high wages; a climate such as the Olympian gods might revel in, and in short, if all England had heard the oration delivered by that man, and had believed it, the country would, in less than a month, have been depopulated of its younger men and women, and left to the tender mercies of the old and middle-aged.
He sends us sorrow, and He wills that we should weep but they should be tears like David's, who, at the lowest point of his fortunes, when he plaintively besought God, 'Put Thou my tears into Thy bottle' could say in the same breath, 'Thy vows are upon me, O God: I will render praises unto Thee. God works on our souls that we may have the consciousness of sin, and He wills that we should come with broken and contrite hearts, and like the king of Israel wail out our confessions and supplications 'Have mercy upon me, O God! according to Thy loving-kindness. But, like him, we should even in our lowliest abasement, when our hearts are bruised, be able to say along with our contrition, 'Open Thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise. Our sorrows are never so great that they hide our mercies.
With me he now erred in mind, nor could my soul be happy without him But behold Thou wert close on the steps of Thy fugitives, at once "God of Vengeance" and Fountain of Mercies, turning us to Thyself by wonderful means. Thou tookest that man out of this life, when he had scarce filled up one whole year of my friendship, sweet to me above all sweetness of that my life.
"How is it, Miss Minturn," she went on, after a moment of silence, "how do you Scientists account for the fact that a perfect and all-merciful God 'the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort, as Paul puts it has created a world of such confusion, wherein evil and suffering, instead of peace and harmony, are the predominant elements? where, for ages, sickness and death have relentlessly mown down generation after generation, until one becomes heart-sick and weary, and even filled with despair, at times, in view of their probable continuance for ages to come?"
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