St. Paul’s, and say that he had faith that the Almighty would keep him from being dashed to pieces on the pavement.  There is a high authority as to such cases—­’Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’  If God had promised that people should never fall into the miseries of penury under any circumstances, it would be faith to trust that promise, however unlikely of fulfilment it might seem in any particular case.  But God has made no such promise; and if you leave your children without provision, you have no right to expect that they shall not suffer the natural consequences of your heartlessness and thoughtlessness.  True faith lies in your doing everything you possibly can, and then humbly trusting in God, And if, after you have done your very best, you must still go, with but a blank outlook for those you leave, why, then, you may trust them to the Husband of the widow and Father of the fatherless.  Faith, as regards such matters, means firm belief that God will do all he has promised to do, however difficult or unlikely.  But some people seem to think that faith means firm belief that God will do whatever they think would suit them, however unreasonable, and however flatly in the face of all the established laws of His government.

We all have it in our power to make ourselves miserable, if we look far into future years and calculate their probabilities of evil, and steadily anticipate the worst.  It is not expedient to calculate too far a-head.  Of course, the right way in this, as in other things, is the middle way:  we are not to run either into the extreme of over-carefulness and anxiety on the one hand, or of recklessness and imprudence on the other.  But as mention has been made of faith, it may safely be said that we are forgetful of that rational trust in God which is at once our duty and our inestimable privilege, if we are always looking out into the future, and vexing ourselves with endless fears as to how things are to go then.  There is no divine promise, that, if a reckless blockhead leaves his children to starve, they shall not starve.  And a certain inspired volume speaks with extreme severity of the man who fails to provide for them of his own house.  But there is a divine promise which says to the humble Christian,—­’As thy days, so shall thy strength be.’  If your affairs are going on fairly now, be thankful, and try to do your duty, and to do your best, as a Christian man and a prudent man, and then leave the rest to God.  Your children are about you; no doubt they may die, and it is fit enough that you should not forget the fragility of your most prized possessions; it is fit enough that you should sometimes sit by the fire and look at the merry faces and listen to the little voices, and think what it would be to lose them.  But it is not needful, or rational, or Christian-like, to be always brooding on that thought.  And when they grow up, it may be hard to provide for them.  The little thing that is sitting on your knee may