eiled the Hand
which is working each moment these signs and wonders within and around
us; and, studying the nature, the mind, the heart, by which that Hand is
guided, we find rest in the assurance that the power whose awful
manifestation in nature might well appal and overwhelm us, is under the
absolute rule of One whose declaration of Himself is that He is Love. We
receive an emancipation from both the terrors and the idols of the
imagination, when we learn that the daily bread of our lives comes to us
from the hand of the Father, and is crowned with His benediction. The
poor believe it quite simply: they have a beautiful sense of dependence
on the Hand which feeds the birds and clothes the lilies. As a child
hangs on the mother's breast, they hang daily as trustfully on the
bounty of the Lord. And they are more free from vain fancies herein than
the philosophers. It is the wise and the scribe who are in bondage to
idols: simple hearts, which have received the revelation of the
relations of the two worlds which the Bible offers, walk free in the
sunlight, and dwell quiet from the fear of evil.

"_Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many
days._"

The main point here then is, that in all husbandry there are two
elements--the intelligence and energy of the man, and the co-operation
of a secret force, the springs of which and the methods of which escape
him, but on which absolutely depend all his fruits. Neither without the
other can produce the harvest. Paul plants, Apollos waters; but God
giveth the increase: but neither without Paul's planting does the
harvest spring. "_Behold, a sower went forth to sow._" The human sower
is, as far as we see, the indispensable fellow-worker with the Most
High God. But God, and not the human sower, has the absolute control of
the result.

Let us look at this more closely. To impress this upon us is the main
object of the writer in the text.

II. The writer of this book asks us to consider how much that has the
most important bearing on the results of our activity is hopelessly
beyond the control of our hand.

No doubt this is a truism: but it is the meaning and force of these
truisms which most easily escape us; custom is the blind of truth. No
matter what it may be to which we put our hands, we are dealing with
elements which only partially subject themselves to our control, or
rather reveal to us the secret by which they may be bent to our use.
Always t