And so Celia Thaxter sang of the sandpiper: 

  He has no thought of any wrong,
  He scans me with a fearless eye.

And her faith expressed itself in a later verse: 

  I do not fear for thee, though wroth
    The tempest rushes through the sky: 
  For are we not God’s children both,
    Thou, little sandpiper, and I?

There is no worry in Nature.  It is man alone that worries.  Nature goes on her appointed way each day unperturbed, unvexed, care-free, doing her allotted tasks and resting absolutely in the almighty sustaining power behind her.  Should man do any less?  Should man—­the reasoning creature, with intelligence to see, weigh, judge, appreciate,—­alone be uncertain of the fatherly goodness of God; alone be unable to discern the wisdom and love behind all things?  Worry, therefore, is an evidence that we do not trust the all-fatherliness of God.

It is also the direct product of vanity, pride and self-conceit.  If these three qualities of evil in the human heart could be removed a vast aggregate amount of worry would die instantly.  No one can study his fellow creatures and not soon learn that an immense amount of worry is caused by these three evils.

We are worried lest our claims to attention are not fully recognized, less our worth be not observed, our proper station accorded to us.  How we press our paltry little claims upon others, how we glorify our own insignificant deeds; how large loom up our small and puny acts.  The whole universe centers in us; our ego is a most important thing; our work of the highest value and significance; our worth most inestimable.

The fact of the matter is most men and women are inestimable, their deeds of value, their lives of importance.  Our particular circle needs us, as we need those who compose it, we are all important, but few, indeed, are there, whose power, influence and importance reach far.  Most of the men and women of the world are ordinary.  A man may be a king in Wall street, and yet influence but few outside of his own immediate sphere.  Most probably he is unknown to the great mass of mankind.  Adventitious circumstances bring some men and women more prominently before the world than others, but even such fame as this is transient, evanescent, and of little importance.  The devoted love of our own small circle; the reliable friendship of the few; the blind adoration of the pet dog are worth more than all the “fame,” the “eclat,” the “renown” of the multitude.  And where we have such love, friendship, and blind adoration, let us rest content therein, and smile at the floods of temporary and evanescent emotion which sweep over the mob, but do not have us for their object.  I have just read a letter which perfectly illustrates how our vanity, our pride, and personal importance bring much worry to us.  The writer—­practically a stranger coming from a far-away state—­evidently expected to be received with a cordial welcome and