He considers you His own, and will perform the part of husband
and father for you at that table, and in his own house he provides for
you ever a place. "In the tithes of wine, corn and oil, the firstlings
of the herds and flocks, in all that is to be devoted to the service of
the Lord, you have your share.

"At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine
increase the same year and lay it up within the gates. And the Levite,
because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee, and the stranger, and
the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come
and eat and be satisfied, that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all
the work of thine hand which thou doest."

Do you sorrowfully say that no such table is now spread? But He who thus
provided still lives, and is the same as then. The silver and the gold
are His, and the cattle upon a thousand hills, and he ruleth all things
by the Word of His power. They that trust in him shall never be
confounded.

"Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the
fatherless, nor take the widow's raiment to pledge. Why? Because they
have no earthly friend to redeem the latter or plead for the former.
Weak and unguarded, they are exposed to all these evils, but that He,
the Eternal, takes them under his own especial care; and instead of
compelling them to depend on the insecure tenure of man's compassion, or
even justice, institutes laws for their benefit, the disobedience of
which is sin against Himself."

Scattered through all the sacred volume are words which, equally with
those we have quoted, speak forth Jehovah's interest in the helpless.
"Leave thy fatherless children to me," he said, by his prophet Jeremiah,
at a time when misery, desolation, and destruction were falling on Judea
and her sons for their awful impiety. "Leave thy fatherless children, I
will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me." "A father of
the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy
habitation."

Oh, do we receive the full import of these soul-cheering words? Lone,
solitary one! who hidest in thy heart a grief which, untasted, cannot be
understood, there is a Being sitting on the circle of the heavens, who
knows every pang thou endurest. He formed thee susceptible of the love
which thou hast felt and enjoyed; Himself ordained the tie which bound
thee. He, better than any other, comprehends thy loss. Dost thou
doubt--stud