s out worlds as the
smith strikes out sparks upon the anvil? Is not man's helper that God
who dippeth up the seas in the hollow of His hand? Who weighs the
mountains with scales and the hills in the balance? What! Thine
enemies too strong for thee? Why, God looketh upon all the nations and
enemies of the earth as but a drop in the bucket. He sendeth forth His
breath, and the tribes disappear as dust is blown from the balance.
Then the trumpet call shivered through these exiles. "Hast thou not
known? Have the sons of the fathers never heard of the everlasting
God, the Lord, Creator of the ends of the earth? Fainteth not, neither
is weary!" Heavy is the task, but the Eternal giveth power and
strength. Even tho young patriots and heroes faint and fall, they that
wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. While fulfilling their
task of rebuilding they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they
shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. Oh, what a
word is this! What page in literature is comparable to it for comfort!
Wonderful the strength of the warrior! Mighty the influence of the
statesman! All powerful seems the inventor, but greater still the poet
who dwells above the clang and dust of time, with the world's secret
trembling on his lips.

He needs no converse nor companionship,
In cold starlight, whence thou can not come,
The undelivered tidings in his breast,
Will not let him rest.
He who looks down upon the immemorable throng,
And binds the ages with a song.
And through the accents of our time,
There throbs the message of eternity.

And so the unwearied God comforted the fainting strength of man.

Primarily, this glorious outburst was addrest to the exiles as heads
of families. The father's strength was broken and his children had
been crusht and ground to earth. The ancient patrimony was gone; he
had gathered his little ones in from the huts where slaves dwelt. He
was leading his little band of pilgrims into a desert. But the prophet
spoke to the exiles as to men who believed that the family was the
great national institution. With us, the family is important, but with
these Hebrew exiles the family was everything. For them the home was
the spring from whence the mighty river rolled forth. The family was
the headwaters of national, industrial, social and religious life.
Every father was revered as the architect of the family fortune. The
first ambition of every young Hebrew wa