Providence in the Commonplace

“The Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot.” — Acts viii, 29.

The Spirit of Providence is always manifested in joining things. It does not work miraculously, but it causes separate things to work together. Here was a whole train of separate incidents. An Ethiopian sat in his chariot. He was on his return journey — his business was done, and therefore his mind was at leisure. Being at leisure, he began to read. Out of the many books with which he might have passed an hour he chose the Prophecies of Isaiah, and, as the place was a desert, he was not likely to be disturbed. But, on the road, the chariot happened to pass a man, and the man whom it passed happened to be a Christian missionary. Into the heart of the missionary there came an unaccountable impulse to run after the chariot. All the circumstances were against the Ethiopian stopping his horses. Why should he take up a pedestrian simply because he was so impertinent as to run after his carriage! And then, the Ethiopian was reading; why interrupt his reading by taking in a total stranger! Everything said, Do not stop 1 But he did; and by that act all the separate rays were united. They came together in one providential beam. Taken by themselves, any one of them might have been an accident. A carriage on a lonely road with a man reading inside is a very common thing. A pedestrian running behind a carriage is a very common thing. A religious teacher in an obscure sphere is a very common thing. An individual studying a chapter of the Bible is a very common thing. The momentary stopping of a conveyance, is a very common thing. But when all these seeming accidents were united, the result was a startling providence — the Christianising of a kingdom.

Lord, Thy life-miracle to me is the great issue that comes from the union of trifling things. In the world of chemistry I can make a third substance by uniting two separate substances; Thine is the chemistry of life, O Lord. We go our separate ways, my brother and L He takes the high road on his own errand; I take the low on mine. We meet at an unexpected turning; and, as the result, there is fulfilled, neither his errand nor mine, but Thine. And what in all this

is Thy message to my soul? It is the reverence for the trivial. Can I ever again say that a desert road is purposeless? Can I ever again say that an obscure ministerial sphere is burial? Can I ever again say that the passing of a carriage is uneventful? No, my Father. Henceforth to me these shall all be possible sacraments. I shall uncover my head to them as I go by. I shall look with veneration on the rejected stones of life’s temple. When my lot is cast in an obscure place I shall bow to the solitude; who knows but Thou shalt make that cloud my chariot! When I am interrupted in reading a chapter I shall not say, “The flesh warreth against the spirit”; who knows but my interruption may be Thy commentary! When I see but one man in my audience I shall not cry, “The mission has failed “; who knows but in that one there is secured the most crowded of all cathedrals! I shall build an altar to the commonplace; I shall reverence life’s daily round. I shall tremble before trifles; I shall sacrifice to the small; I shall worship what the world calls worthless. Samaria’s well may be Thy welcome, Simon’s feast may be Thy fellowship, a broken box of ointment may bring beatitude to Thy heart; make me solemn in the secular, O my God!