Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-11-06

| llIe OF Jesus Cnr1st TO Delleve that Goa cares
very much whether we have q great deal of
money or not, whether we live in very
handsome houses or not whether we dress
in fashionable attire or not. Unless we take
it as the meaning of His words and the les
son of His Ii Q that 1t is better not to have
| great riches, except to hold them as Gods
stewards for the good OF man, and that the
| less concern we take about our eating and
| drinking and attiring SO much the better.
Certain it is that He set the kingdom of God
and his righteousness distinctly first. And
when we reverse that divine order, and set
some lesser thing first, 1t is not likely tina,
lose 1t.
1--we would be happy, we must unlearn
foolish grief We must value much what
| God values much, and set at a small price
| what He values little. If we could but do
that, reserving our affections for those
ties might befall US without disturbing our
| serenity2
Most of the worries of life are connected
in the sight of God. The ve1ations Of
| business. the perplexities and entangle-
ments Of housekeeping, the dtsappoint-
| ments and bad service of employees, the
cook, the clerk, the dress, the bargain, the
| dinner-these suggest a great many Of the
/ lesser griefs of life. They are fertile in
hindrances to happiness.
| Causing Ones Own Unhappiness.
But it is almost always our own fault. It
| is because we attach an exaggerated impor-
| tance to them. After all, are they worth the
| worrv that they make? Would it not be
better to take them as they come, deal with
| them as wisely and as patiently as we can,
and then put them out of our minds7. Some
people actually die from the stings of gnats.
| They are worried into their graves by the
| petty cares of common life. Whereas It is
| the counsel of Christ that we should not
worry. He said that more than once. The
| Christian will make it a matter of principle
| not to worry.
| The remedy for this sort of unhappiness
| is to think about great, important things,
which will dwarf these trities into incon-
of all possessions in the sight of God is
| character. And the foremost interest of
all who are really trying to do Gods will
must be his kingdom and His righteous
| ness.
"There is but one thing needful," said
| Amiel in his journal, "to possess God. All
| our senses, all our powers of mind and soul,
all our external resources, are SO many ways
| of approaching the Divin1ty,s so many modes
of tasting and adoring God We must learn
to detach ourselves from all tnat is capable
OF being lost; to bind ourselves absolutely
only to what is absolute and eternal, and to
enjoy the rest as loan."
He who loves God sets God first And It
is to him that all things work together for
good.
Being Willing to Wait.
Iue Inlru COnUlIlOu OICQTlSIldu DapplneSS
is willingness to wait. A great deal OF grief
springs out OF misunderstanding. We do
not see the meaning of our trouble. And
very often we hasten to attach to it the most
tragic, the most hopeless of meanings. We
say to ourselves that it is now evident that
God does not care. They taught US that
God is our loving father, in the days before
our sorrow came, and we believed it with
out thinking much about it. 1t was easy to
hall = prrf rNnNr hat Nr
worse God does not care. And so the sky
grows black. While many times-perhaps
most times-if we would but wait, we would
presently discover in our ttouble only a
plaaner evidence of the wise love of God.
God desires to lead us into richer blessings,
but the path lies through hard places, and
we grow too easily discouraged.
Sometimes we suffer from anticipated sor-
row, which never really comes, but joy in
the place of it. All that sort of sorrow
would be banished out OF life il we but loved
God enough to trust Him, and TO wait. We
are like the women in the dusk of the Easter
dawn, wondering as they go who will roll
away the great stone from the door of the
sepulchre, and probably distressing them
selves greatly about it; and behold, as they
approach, the stone is rolled awayi If we
love God we will cast our anxious care on
Him, knowing that He cares for us.
Being Mistaken in Blessings.
Sometimes we are not wise enough to
recognize the blessing when we see It. We
mistake friends for enemies. We account
helps to be hindrances. That was the. kind
of mistake that Jacob made when the news
came from Egypt about the strange suspic-
ions of the ruler of that country: the old
man lost heart. "All these things" he cried,
'are ag a1nst me-" Whereas all those things
were for him, not against him: They were
but preparations for the greatest blessing he
knew how to pray for. They were manifes-
tations of the watchful and abiding love Of
Id Wa hi rrrfNI Tna kIaN In.
did not wait. He fell into the error of i'm
patience. He lacked faith. Had he but
loved God better he would have kept Sc
rene heart through all, knowing that ali
highest good.
The truth is, that human life is like a
novel of which we know the end. Before
we get far along in it we are told how it
comes out. 1t comes out right at last for all
who love God That makes the novel easier
to read. 1t makes life easier to live. Yes,
there are complications enough and bur-
dens hard to bear, and obstacles high as
mountains across the path, and all things
seem to be going wrong, nothing is right.
But walt; In que in time i W., we M shall see; E9r
written there that all things, even the hard
est things, work together for them that love
God.
Being Patient and TrustfuL
He who loves God trusts Him. He realizes
that God knows more than he does. He
learns that God works gradually, and Is |
never in hurry, and step by step brings
blessing out of what seems malediction.
And he is content to wait. He tarries pa
tiently and trustfully for dawn. The night |
grows blacker and blacker. The great grief |
shuts out all the light of heaven. Even the |
face of God is lost to sight. God seems to |
have forsaken us. We cannot see our way. |
ALL this tragedy in whose black depths we |
fall seems so insoluble, so mysterious. We |
cannot find q reason for it. Why did it |
come? What does it mean? There is not |
ray of light in the darkness.
What then? What shall we do? In this |
dread confusion, in this loss of all we love |
most in this tragic defeat and overthrow
of life, how can we keep happiness? By |
keeping faith; by looking forward to the
dawn. Sometimes the light will shine again,
all shadows flee away, all tears change into
tears ofjoy, all questions have satisfying an
swers, all things work together for good-if
we love God. The blessed solution and ex-
PLANTATION of the tragic mystery of life may
come soon, or it may come late. We may
learn 1t here or we may not learn it till the
light of the life to come shines in our iaces
We must be content to wait. This is Gods
world. Our father is the ruler of it, and
loves US. God has his wise and loving mean
ing in all that happens to US. We must wait
and trust His love. GEORGE HODGES.
THE STORY OF A CLOCK.