Nature Tends to Its Author

“Trees, that receive lifefroin the earth a?id the sun, send forth their bra?zches to receive the sun, and spread their roots i?ito the earth, which brought thent forth. Fishes will 7zot live out of the water that breedeth them. Chickens are 7io sooner out of the shell but they shroud themselves under the feathers of the heji by whom, they were at first hatched. The little lajnb runneth to its dam, though there be a thousa?id sheep of the same wool and colour; as if it said, ‘Here I received that which I have, and here will I seek that which I wa7it? By such a native inbred desire do the saints run to God to seek a supply of strength and This is an excellent lesson for every believer. All our instincts should lead us to our God. We ought not to need so much as directing, much less impelling, towards the great source of our spiritual life. We ought as naturally to seek after the Lord from day to day as the spark seeks the sun, or the river the ocean, or the sheep its pasture, or the bird its nest. “O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee,” should be the perpetual cry of our heart. Onward and upward be still our movement, a secret ardour ever burning in us towards the Lord our God.

To whom else should we go? This question has never received an answer, and never will receive one. We are bound to dwell in God or perish. As we find all in God, so we find nothing out of him. What the fish would be without water, or the chick without the hen, or the tree without the earth, — that we should be without our God. It is the height of folly for us to attempt a thought alone; there is but one greater absurdity, and that is to venture upon an act without him. “Abide in me” is the voice of him in whom our life abides. Let us not be deaf to his tender warning.