The Northern News. — 1896-09-19 (Carlisle, Cumbria, England)

GOD'S CURE FOR WORRY.  On this subject Mr Waugh took as a text the words —" In nothing be anxious, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus."—Phil. iv., 6, 7 R.V. Or paraphrased, Mr Waugh said—Worry about nothing, pray about everything, be thankful for anything, and you will have peace in all things. There are few things more peculiar about Christian life than our wonderfully partial way of treating our Lord's commands. There are some of his injunctions we never dream of violating; there are others equally binding we seldom think of keeping, and this is one of them—" Don't worry --and yet in these intensely earnest days there are not a few sincere Christians who will deliberately tell us that that is a command which cannot be kept. As to the nature of worry, this command does not forbid earnest thought about the future. The line between the present and the future is a very narrow one. I could never, when at Headingley, sing the verse—  Man may shrink from trials Which the future may disclose, Yet I never had a sorrow But what the dear Lord chose; So I dash the coming tears back With the whispered word—" He knows."  I have had many a sorrow which the Lord never chose, because it was the outcome of my own folly or sin. The Lord does not forbid careful provision for the future, and the Bible is the worst book to come to for a sanction for laziness, for it shames a man out of his indolence by sending him to learn lessons from the ant. It cracks up diligence and industry, and pitches into indolence all the way through. Paul makes the radical statement—" If a man won't work, neither shall he eat," and when that legislation is enacted and universally enforced you will then see some very thin people about. The Lord will do nothing for us which we can do for ourselves.  When the Lord says "Don't worry," he is warning us against that fretfulness, that brooding over anxiety, that carking care which works us up into what the Cumberland folks call a 'stew." I am perhaps making a mistake in trying to explain what worry is for don't we all know by personal experience? Which of us has not done a great deal of unnecessary worry about the future, and future troubles are far harder to bear than present ones, because the Lord will not lend a helping hand to bear troubles contracted by taking to-morrow's burdens on to-day's back. As to the evils of worry, I was astounded when I came to search the Bible to find so much said against worry. Let us remember the Lord is our Father, and that he loves us with intensest love. We are limited in our circumstances, and there are many things we should like to give our little ones, but we haven't it in our power; but there is no limit to the Lord's resources. He can supply all our need, according to his riches in glory. The Lord is like ourselves, he likes to be trusted.  TO give way to worry limits our usefulness. We constantly hear it said—" It is not work but worry that kills," and there are a good many Christians going to heaven years before the Lord wants them there. Worry, too, misrepresents our Lord and his religion. There are a lot of people who never read their Bible, and yet there is a bible the godless wretch reads every day very carefully—they read you professing Christians, and to do so they don't put on green shades. There are few things which make me so anxious to be a good man as the thought that the godly man is the ungodly man's Bible, and a good few read no other.  As to the cure, you may be sure the command would not have been given if it could not be kept. God does not enjoin what is impossible. Some ask—" Is not all this a mere matter of temperament ? " And I admit that temperament plays an important part in all those things which touch us. Some are naturally sanguine, others are naturally gloomy, but while temperament is universal there is something offered to us which is stronger than temperament, and that is the grace of God. The cure, therefore, is to remember God and your relationship to Him, and gladly and fully leave everything in His hand. A gentleman referring to the times asked me if I was not astonished at the recent increase in suicides, and I replied that I was astonished that there are not more. He asked why, and I pointed him to the horrors of Armenia, for whose wrongs every Englishman is responsible; to the lowering of the warcloud and to the tramp of six millions of armed men in Europe; and to the thousands born into the world without a ghost of a chance, and the social problems connected with this, and at the close of our conversation we were driven to this conclusion that if a man has a heart to feel and brains to see and yet does not look to God for a readjustment of these things, then we can understand his getting so sick of life that he takes the shortest cut out of it. In reply to another question. I said to this gentleman that there is one text which is my sheet anchor—it is "The Lord Reigneth." That means that the almighty God, the God of love, is on the throne of the universe, and has the reins in His own hands. Satan can only go so far, and though he may build torture houses for God's people, he has to go to the Lord for his plans and specifications. Behind Armenia, Venezuela, Cuba; behind Governments, cabinets, elections, and all our social problems, God lives, and through them all God works. _  Then what is our summing up? It is that if you and I keep right with God, there is nothing in heaven, nor hell, nor earth that can do us harm. And what is God's substitute for worry? Paul calls it the " Peace which passeth all understanding," and that shall keep, guard, garrison your hearts and thoughts, and thus be a protective power in and around you.