hen these persons will think of God gratefully;
or if they do not, there is no better way of making them think of God,
for this was Christ's way, who had rarely need to add much explanation
of His kind deeds, but letting them speak for themselves, heard the
people giving God the glory. If men can be induced to believe in the
love of their fellow-men, they are well on the road to belief in the
love of God. And even though it should _not_ be so, though all our
endeavours to help men should fail to make them think of God as their
helper, who has sent us and all help to them, yet we have helped them,
and some at least of God's love for these suffering people has got
itself expressed through us. God has got at least a little of His work
done, has in one direction stopped the spread of evil.

Neither are we to wait until we can do things on a great scale, and
attack the evils of human life with elaborate machinery. Our Lord was
not a great organiser. He did not busy Himself with forming societies
for this, that, and the other charitable work. He did not harangue
assemblies convened to consider the relief of the poor; He did not press
the abolition of slavery; He did not found orphanages or hospitals; but
"as He passed by," He saw one blind man, and judged this a call
sufficiently urgent. Sometimes we feel that, confronted as we are with a
whole world full of deep-rooted and inveterate evils, it is useless
giving assistance to an individual here and there. It is like trying to
dry up the ocean with a sponge. We feel impatient with individual acts,
and crave national action and radical measures. And that is very well,
so long as we do not omit to use the opportunities we actually have of
doing even little kindnesses, of undergirding the shattered life of
individuals, and so enabling them to do what otherwise they could not
do. But we shall never do our part, either to individuals or on a large
scale, until we apprehend that it is only through us and others that God
works, and that when we pass by a needy person we prevent God's love
from reaching him, and disappoint the purpose of God. It was this
feeling that imparted to Christ so intense and wakeful an energy. He
felt it was God's work He was on earth to do. "I must work the works of
Him that sent Me while it is day." He recognised that God was in the
world looking with compassion on all human sorrow, but that this
compassion could find expression only through His own instrume