THE QUIET HOUR

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 10, 11 May 1929, Page 3

THE QUIET HOUR

SUNDAY READING.

By Rev. H. L. Blamirss). A question being frequently asked to-day is this: "is there a providential order in the universe, and is it reasonable to believe that God has a care for each individual man ox woman or little child?" The doubt that arises on the. matter is always intnsified in tim eof war or national calamity or in personal affliction and bereavement. Some few will deny that there is a God. More will question whether it is reasonable to suppose that He can care for us individually. The Christian's attitude is that of St. Peter "Casting all your care upon Him • for He careth for you." And this confidence is not blind credulity, nor is it a denial that evil exists, and that God's purposes of love seem often to be frustrated, and are hard to be understood. It is a reasoned bfiief based upon observation, history and experience.

SCIENCE AND PROVIDENCE. * e . 8 , Many Leading scientists, and among them some evolutionists, believe in a Providential order, and that God has His hand upon the helm of affairs. As wo ascend in the scale of nature the evidence becomes clearer. .'n inanimate nature there seems little room for Providence. Law] reigns, and there is no freedom of choice. The stars never swerve. from thencourses, unless by the attraction cr repulsion of some other heavenly body. Thus Neptune was discovered because an apparently erratic course of other planets had to be explained. But in the smallest organised and lower forms of life, there is evidence of providence and purpose. The lowest organisms choose or reject tfocfir; means! of growth. Jn sentiment beings with some form of consciousness, the evidence increases. Then in man we have consciousness of freedom and will and power of choice, ability to reason, and, a moral sense and desire for worship, whi-h postulates a relationship to one above, a feeling of dependence a<nd responsibilty. Jesus was the highest holiest manhood, an dHe believed and taught a, Divine Providence, and a Heavenly Father, who cares for the lilies and the sparrows and has a special care for each individual man. Ho practised this in His life and death. "The Father hath not left me alone, for I do always the things that please Him." Change of fortune did not mean calamity, sorrow did not bring separation, and deavh did not spell disaster. It was simply "going to- the Father." DOES GOD CARE? Doubt of God's care arises from three considerations. First, because of man's insignificance and the smallness and remoteness of our tiny planet. This was the psalmists question ''When I consider Thy heavens, the sun and the moon, what is man that Thou are mindful of him." But doubt here shows a wrong conception of God. Size does not count with, him, but sense does. Sir Ernest Rutherford tells us that the elections in each atom in. a pin's head, are relatively as distant from each other and as orderly in their- movement as the mightly suns that sweep through the skies. God moves and works m elections as in stars, in tiny bowers as in comets. The psalmist answered his own question, when he said: "Thou are mindful of him, Thou visitest him."

Second, because there are so many of us. That was Emmie's difficulty in Tennyson's "Children's Hospital.'' "But if I cry to the Lord, how could He know it was me—so many cots in the ward." Some think God must bo like the "old lady who lived m a shoe. Sliq had so many children she didn't know what to do." But Mrs. Wesley had eighteen children, and cared for every one and gave to each some time for prayer. Greatness can individualise., where we see only the mass. In a chemist's shop We. see bottles; tlie chemist puts his hand unerringly on the one he needs. God is not only the God of Heaven and earth. He is the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and you and me. And thirdly, we doubt because law seems to reign everywhere, and who are we to alter God's laws for us. Yes, but law reigns in the spiritual as well a s the natural world. It is one of God's laws that Ho answers thee who pray, that He draws nigh to those who draw nigh to Him, that pSace rules in the hearts of whose minds are stayed upon Him. "Casting all your care upon Him for He careth for yon." That is fcho reasonable theory. What about putting it into practice ? Casting nil our care upon Him" io seeking in prayer and through. Jesus to know God's will for us and to accept it and do it, and to know that all is well.