When he reflects
on his condition--his brief date, his speedy doom--how inconsiderable his
existence appears! Or when he regards himself as not a compound of matter
merely, but as a living soul, how easy it seems, as his contemplation runs
out absorbed into the wondrous glory of the world, for all the vital
energy which is for a moment insulated in his frame, when his frame
dissolves, to pass into the general substance from which it came, the
thinking creature ending as it began! But a voice from heaven cries to him
and says, "Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver
him. I will set him on high because he hath known my name; with long life
will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."
This love of God makes the society of all human affection. "God made the
country, and man made the town," is an oft quoted line; and not seldom it
is implied that the open or thinly-peopled landscape is somehow a better
and holier place for the soul than the thronged city. But let it not be
forgotten that man himself is God's work and His highest work on earth.
Would we sing our psalm now or hereafter with the sweetest relish, we must
go forth from any little circle we may have drawn around us, of private
ease and personal comfort, in friendly intercourse to hear the cry of the
unfortunate, the sighing of the prisoner, the sob of the mourner, the
groan of the sick, the appeal of the injured and oppressed.
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