“I should like to know a man who just minded his duty and troubled himself about nothing; who did his own work and did not interfere with God’s.  How nobly he would work—­working not for reward, but because it was the will of God!  How happily he would receive his food and clothing, receiving them as the gifts of God!  What peace would be his!  What a sober gaiety!  How hearty and infectious his laughter!  What a friend he would be!  How sweet his sympathy!  And his mind would be so clear he would understand everything His eye being single, his whole body would be full of light.  No fear of his ever doing a mean thing.  He would die in a ditch, rather.  It is this fear of want that makes men do mean things.  They are afraid to part with their precious lord—­Mammon.  He gives no safety against such a fear.  One of the richest men in England is haunted with the dread of the workhouse.  This man whom I should like to know, would be sure that God would have him liberal, and he would be what God would have him.  Riches are not in the least necessary to that.  Witness our Lord’s admiration of the poor widow with her great farthing.

“But I think I hear my troubled friend who does not love money, and yet cannot trust in God out and out, though she fain would,—­I think I hear her say, “I believe I could trust Him for myself, or at least I should be ready to dare the worst for His sake; but my children —­it is the thought of my children that is too much for me.”  Ah, woman! she whom the Saviour praised so pleasedly, was one who trusted Him for her daughter.  What an honour she had!  “Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”  Do you think you love your children better than He who made them?  Is not your love what it is because He put it into your heart first?  Have not you often been cross with them?  Sometimes unjust to them?  Whence came the returning love that rose from unknown depths in your being, and swept away the anger and the injustice!  You did not create that love.  Probably you were not good enough to send for it by prayer.  But it came.  God sent it.  He makes you love your children; be sorry when you have been cross with them; ashamed when you have been unjust to them; and yet you won’t trust Him to give them food and clothes!  Depend upon it, if He ever refuses to give them food and clothes, and you knew all about it, the why and the wherefore, you would not dare to give them food or clothes either.  He loves them a thousand times better than you do—­be sure of that—­and feels for their sufferings too, when He cannot give them just what He would like to give them—­cannot for their good, I mean.

“But as your mistrust will go further, I can go further to meet it.  You will say, ’Ah! yes’—­in your feeling, I mean, not in words,—­you will say, ’Ah! yes—­food and clothing of a sort!  Enough to keep life in and too much cold out!  But I want my children to have plenty of good food, and nice clothes.’