GOD'S GUIDANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 237, 3 October 1908, Page 12

GOD'S GUIDANCE.

By the REV. A. W SNYDER, of St. Paul's Church, New York. "In an thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths." — Proverbs lii. 6. When seized with a mortal malady, General Grant passed his last days in writing hia very interesting memoirs. Knowing that bis way in this world was rapidly drawing to an end, there came to him a deep sense of God's gracious guidance, and so he began the story of his life by saying: "Man proposes and God disposes. There are but few important steps in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice." It is the common experience. God's overruling hand may seem more manifest in the case of such a man, and yet it is just as real in the lot of the lowly as in that of those who "sit in the seats of the mighty." "His mercy ia over all His works." "In Him we live, and move, and have our being." His gracious guidance is not for the favoured few only. It is over us all. It provides for all men and blesses all men in proportion as they are willing to be blessed. Seeing that it is so, we should '•thankfully recognise the Divine Providence that is over us all. It should be the ground of our confidence and the strength of our hope for ourselves and our fellow men. Even though many seem to live as if "without God in the world," we may hope for them still, for the Divine Providence has not yet been fulfilled in them. If God bears with them, surely we should also. He loves them still for all their wilfulness and waywardness, and often in ways that we know not of He brings the wanderer back. It may be through a sorrowful way, but His" hand is over them stil, and so we can hopefully leave them with Him who is doing for them all He can. He does not force His way into their hearts, but waits for an opening door, ready to come in with blessings as soon as ever He can find room. Now, as of old, to as many as receive Him gives He power to become the sons of God, not in possibility only, but in very deed and truth. He cannot help those who do not will to be helped, but He is always helping the helpable and blessing the blessable and saving the savable, and so we have the right to say with him who said: — "I say to thee, do thou repeat To the first man thou mayest meet, In lane, highway or open street, That he and we, and all men move Under canopy of love As broad as the bine sSy above."