'Tis foolish, 'tis needless, and godless! A man bending and staggering along the road under the weight of a heavy load met a passing wagon; he was invited to get in. He did so, but he still kept the load on his back. Foolish man! Yet that's the common attitude. God's chariot drives up to us this morning, overtaking us on life's way. "Get in, traveler, I will bear thee along," is the invitation. "Cast all your cares upon me. I will care for you." "Thank you, kind Lord, but I prefer to bear the load myself." There is a Being that has brought us into this world,--Father, we call Him. He is a resourceful Father, having all forces and agencies of sky, land, and sea, all the operations of men, angels, and beasts at His command; He is a loving Father; He has pleasure in the children after His heart. Silly child, you say, that will start to cry and make a great ado because it has conceived the notion that its wealthy father cannot feed and clothe it any longer. Is it not just as incongruous, my dear Christian, for you to perplex yourself with thoughts of anguish that God cannot provide for you any more? "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things?" He should neglect His loving providence, leave and forsake thee this year? O ye of little faith!
In one of the books handed to our children at Christmas time is the history of a familiar and beautiful German hymn. Reduced by financial straits to sell his only means of support, his violin, a poor musician took it to the pawnshop of a Jew. As he gave it up, he looked lovingly at it, and tearfully asked the Jew if he might play one more tune upon it. "You don't know," he said, "how hard it is to part with it. For ten years it has been my companion; if I had nothing else, I had it. Of all the sad hearts that have left your door, there has been none so sad as mine." Whereupon, pausing for a moment, he seized the instrument and commenced a tune so exquisitely soft that even the Jew listened, in spite of himself. Then, laying aside the instrument, he said, "As God will," and rushed from the shop, only to be stopped at the door by a stranger, who, having listened, said to him, "Could you tell me where I could obtain a copy of that song? I would willingly give a florin for it." "I will give it to you without the florin." The stranger happened to be the Swedish ambassador, and when he heard the poor man's story, his troubles ended then and there. Redeeming the instrument, he called his landlady and his friends, and sang, to his own accompaniment, his own sweet hymn, No. 350 in our hymn-book, of which this is the first stanza: