“THE Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works."
“The eyes of all wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due season."
“Oh! how God delights in giving,
Little helpless one, to thee!
Every moment that you're living,
Some kind gift from Him you see.
All the care, so fond, so tender;
All the love which round you flows,
He makes loving hearts to render—
For your infant need He knows."
Children's Hymn Book
Acts 7:9-239And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him, 10And delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house. 11Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Chanaan, and great affliction: and our fathers found no sustenance. 12But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first. 13And at the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren; and Joseph's kindred was made known unto Pharaoh. 14Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls. 15So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers, 16And were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem. 17But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, 18Till another king arose, which knew not Joseph. 19The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live. 20In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father's house three months: 21And when he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son. 22And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. 23And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel. (Acts 7:9‑23); Ex. 2; Heb. 11:23, 2723By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. (Hebrews 11:23)
27By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. (Hebrews 11:27)
ACT 7:9-239And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him, 10And delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house. 11Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Chanaan, and great affliction: and our fathers found no sustenance. 12But when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first. 13And at the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren; and Joseph's kindred was made known unto Pharaoh. 14Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls. 15So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers, 16And were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem. 17But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, 18Till another king arose, which knew not Joseph. 19The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live. 20In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father's house three months: 21And when he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son. 22And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. 23And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel. (Acts 7:9‑23)EXO 2HEB 11:23, 2723By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. (Hebrews 11:23)
27By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. (Hebrews 11:27)EVERY child has, I am sure, seen a Baby. What a little soft helpless thing it looks as it lies sleeping in its Mother's arms!
If you have a baby brother or a baby sister, do you not love it very much and feel quite pleased if, just as you come softly up to peep into its cradle, it awakes, and coos at you, or stretches its tiny hand towards you?
What constant tender care the little one needs; it cannot think, or care for itself; another must care for it. It has nothing and it can do nothing; but one precious thing accompanies every baby that is born into the world, and it is this: God's Tender Care, which stands as the title to my chapter about Moses; for the story of Moses begins at the time when he was a little baby.
How wonderful that God, in recording the history of this great prophet, should have thought of telling us about him as a little baby!
Poor little child! He was born in a time of much trouble; his parents, though they prized their beautiful baby, could not look at him without feelings of sorrow, for the King of Egypt-the mighty Pharaoh, of whom, indeed, it might be said, that he feared not God nor regarded man, was the cruel enemy of their helpless child.
Pharaoh feared not God; he knew not the all-seeing Eye which took note of every thought of his wicked heart, and beheld every action of his cruel hand; he also regarded not man; in vain would it have been for Amram, the child's father, to reason with him, in vain for Jochabed to weep and plead with him to spare her child. He had given commandment that every son of an Israelite was to be killed the moment it was born.
Amram and Jochabed were Israelites; they belonged to the tribe of Levi, who was the third son of Jacob or Israel. Joseph, the youngest but one of the sons of Israel, had held a post of high honor in the land of Egypt: when Jacob had left the famine-stricken land of Canaan to dwell with his sons and his grandchildren in Egypt, he and all his had been received with favor by the Pharaoh who then was king.
Gen. 47:66The land of Egypt is before thee; in the best of the land make thy father and brethren to dwell; in the land of Goshen let them dwell: and if thou knowest any men of activity among them, then make them rulers over my cattle. (Genesis 47:6), tells us how this Pharaoh felt towards the father and brethren of Joseph. “The land of Egypt is before thee: in the best of the land make thy father and brethren to dwell; in the land of Goshen let them dwell;" but Ex. 1:66And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. (Exodus 1:6), tells us that "Joseph died and all his brethren, and all that generation." Then “there arose up a new king over Egypt which knew not Joseph."
This Pharaoh saw how the people of Israel prospered, how they increased in numbers; they were also, very likely, superior in appearance and bodily power to the Egyptians, for the Israelites were descendants of Shem, that son of Noah whom God had especially blessed; the Egyptians, on the contrary, were descended from Ham, the son who had been punished by the curse of God, though they were among the best, not the lowest of Ham's descendants.
So Pharaoh saw the prosperity of the Israelites, and he began to fear them and to plan a way to distress them; he said, “Let us deal wisely with them." But was it wise to fear and to hate the people of God? How much wiser would this king have been, had he learned instead to fear and love the God who could so preserve His own people, notwithstanding all that was done to afflict them. But Pharaoh learned nothing; when one of his plans failed he tried another until, at last, he invented the cruel and wicked plan of drowning all the little Hebrew sons as soon as they were born, and it was at this time that Moses was born.
An exceedingly beautiful child he was; and was he to be cast into the great river of Egypt and drowned? Could not the God who had given the child also preserve him from the hand of Pharaoh?
Amram and Jochabed knew that God could do this, so by faith they hid their little son, and were not afraid of the king's commandment. You may think how sad it was for them to be obliged to hide their baby, how little the mother would care to go out when she could not take the child with her, how she would fear to speak to any one lest she should betray the secret, and how, in some quiet moment when she sat with the child in her arms, her heart would beat quickly at the sound of a strange voice or an approaching footstep.
Perhaps you have tried at some time to keep a secret; it might have been a little tiny secret, but it felt so big in your heart that you were almost afraid to open your mouth lest it should come tumbling out, before you were aware of it, I hope you have never tried to keep a secret that made your heart beat quickly and the color flush to your face when you heard some one coming, for I think that might be a bad secret. Was yours a bad secret? Ah; never say you could not tell whether your secret was a good one or a bad one. Could you speak to God about it? By this you may always know.
Jochabed, no doubt, often spoke to God about her little hidden baby, and we may be sure that those “eyes of the Lord which run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show themselves strong" for those who trust in Him, often rested on the child whom He could see, though Pharaoh could not. The tender care of God, like a sheltering cloud, preserved this helpless little one then, as it keeps you now, from the many, many dangers which surround you; though, because of that tender care, you may never know anything about them.
The houses in Egypt were not built like the houses of England. Sometimes the poorer houses were made without any roofs; this, in England, would be dreadful, because we are constantly exposed to cold and rain, but the land of Egypt is hot, and rain very seldom falls there; perhaps Jochabed's house may have been one without a roof, for the Israelites at that time were treated as slaves, and would certainly not have houses of the best kind.
A house without a roof would have been a difficult place to keep anything unseen in, but, however this was, when the child was three months old his mother could no longer hide him. The time was come when she must give him up out of her own keeping, and leave him entirely to the care of God.
You will see, as the story goes on, that he was made in this very way, though it seemed so unfortunate, to be much safer than he could have been while kept from Pharaoh only by the watchfulness of his parents—
"All things work together for good to them that love God."
Jochabed could not read these words, which have expressed the faith and comforted the hearts of so many in later years, but God no doubt comforted her heart, for what she did she was doing by faith, and faith always looks up to God, and always gets some answer from God.
Amram and Jochabed lived close to the Nile, which is the only river of Egypt. Its banks were, at that time, covered with a very useful plant, a kind of reed or rush, having long, narrow, flag-like leaves and very tall thick stalks, and from these stalks the boats which sailed on the Nile were made. Jochabed, I dare say, had made mats and baskets with the stalks of this plant, and these are the “bull-rushes " of which the little ark was made that was now to be the cradle for Moses.
It must have been a sad day for the Mother when, having lined the bull-rush ark with slime and pitch to keep out the water, she laid her precious little baby in it and carried it out of the house to the banks of the Nile; there "she laid it in the flags by the river's brink."
I once knew of a precious little baby who was lost. You may wonder how this was. A thoughtless person, not the baby's own nurse, had gone out one cold winter's day and taken it with her without asking leave, and as the baby had been ill and had been very carefully kept, we were very much afraid lest it should take cold. Its little sister found the time very long as she stood watching anxiously from a window that looked down the road, and some one, seeing the sad little face, to comfort her said, “I think Jane will take care of the baby."
The little girl looked earnestly round to the speaker and said, “No, I don't think Jane will, but I think God will take care of the baby;" and I am sure you will be glad to know that, soon afterward, the baby was brought back, and the tender care that was over it had kept it from all harm. Perhaps this same thought, “God will take care of the baby," comforted Jochabed's heart as she turned away from the river's side where she had placed the precious little cradle. She dared not remain beside it herself, for that might have attracted the notice of the Egyptians, but Miriam, the sister of Moses, stood a little way off to watch what would next happen. The flags of the Nile are often taller than the tallest man, so Miriam could easily stand among them unseen; how long she waited there we are not told, but I think she would watch with all her heart. Would not you, if your little baby brother lay hidden, and your mother had trusted you to stay by and see what would happen to him?
All sorts of people might pass close to where Miriam and the baby were; some might have come down to get water from the river, some to cut the stalks of the papyrus, for this was the name of the bull-rush plant which grew beside the Nile; how eagerly Miriam would watch them and perhaps she would tremble lest some rough-looking Egyptian should come suddenly upon her and the little bull-rush ark; but none could find it, none could see it, for the tender care was over it still, like a sheltering cloud, until the one appointed by God to be the protector of Moses, and indeed the only one who could have protected him from the cruel authority of Pharaoh, was brought, by the hand she knew not, to the very spot where he lay.
Miriam presently saw a little company of women coming towards her, nearer and nearer; not Israelites nor Egyptian laborers, but a lady attended by her servants; a very grand lady, for it was none other than the Princess, the daughter of Pharaoh. On she walked to the river's edge, for she was come to bathe: she reached the very spot where the little ark was, and, at once, she saw it.
What could be there, so carefully covered and yet laid in so strange a place?
She sent her maid to fetch it, "and when she had opened it, she saw the child."
Yes, Pharaoh's daughter saw Moses; he was no longer hidden. He could not know, poor helpless baby, what a moment of danger that was; he could do nothing to free himself from the strange hands that touched him, and not a word could he say to implore their pity, but he spoke in baby fashion, to the heart which God was making soft and kind towards the lonely child. The babe wept, and she had compassion on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews' children."
Now was Miriam's time: she had watched patiently and listened carefully, she saw that the daughter of Pharaoh looked kindly at the weeping babe, and now it was for her to come bravely out from her hiding-place; and how wisely she spoke: "Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?" “And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go."
Miriam no doubt went on her errand with a joyful heart and willing steps, and whom do you think she fetched? Whom should you have fetched? Whom, but the baby's own Mother!
Jochabed was ready to obey the call, you may be sure, and soon returned to the spot where, a short time before, she had so carefully hidden the babe among the flags. Now, the Princess and her maidens stood round the ark, and Pharaoh's daughter was waiting to commit the child, as her own, to Jochabed's care.
“Take this child," said the Princess, "and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages."
Jochabed, of course, did not want wages to make her willing to nurse her own beloved little son, but now she was to take him to nurse for Pharaoh's daughter, and take him as given back to her, in that way, by the tender hand of God, in whose safe keeping she had left him in faith a few hours before.
We read that it was the mother who hid the child, who took the ark of bull-rushes and laid it in the flags by the river's brink, but in Heb. 11 we are told that his "parents" did all this by faith, so no doubt Amram took part with Jochabed in all her labors, her fears, and her faith, but he may only have been able to share in heart with the Mother, for the Israelite men were forced to work very hard in making great numbers of bricks for the Egyptian king; Egyptian taskmasters were set over them and, as was the custom with regard to slaves, the Israelites were severely beaten if they did not make as many bricks as were required of them.
Besides making bricks, the Israelites built two cities for Pharaoh. The names of these cities were Pithon and Raamses, and in them Pharaoh kept treasures, or stores of grain and other things which the fruitful land of Egypt produced in abundance.
For God “maketh his sun to shine upon the evil and the good."
But Pharaoh considered not, while he unthankfully stored up these good things for himself, and the taskmasters considered not, while they distressed and ill-used the poor Israelite slaves, that “God heard their groaning," and the day was coming when the God of heaven and earth would deliver the defenseless slaves, and would punish the cruel oppressors.
For "He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see?"
We, too, do well to consider whether we ever cause a tear or a sigh that God will see or hear with displeasure. Children, of course, have not anything like the power of Pharaoh and the taskmasters, but God sees and marks your little ways just as He marked the great works of the Egyptian king; He knows whether you take thankfully or unthankfully all that with which His goodness surrounds you, and whether you ever cause those who care for you (and who perhaps endure hardships and labors on your account) to shed tears. It would be sad indeed if sighs should go up to God, instead of the thanks that are due, from the children who daily need and daily enjoy the Tender Care of God.
Amram had, no doubt, sighed many a sigh that had gone up to God on the day when Jochabed laid their little son by the river's brink. He could not expect the joyful surprise that awaited him when, at last, the weary day's work was ended, and he could return to his home-the sweet baby unharmed by its mother's side and no longer hidden, no longer in danger, but to be nursed for the daughter of Pharaoh himself.
You may be sure that the child had careful tending, and he grew until at last he was old enough to be taken back to the Princess. She received him kindly. She was not going to make a slave of him, as often was done with little stranger children who were brought to the palaces of kings, he became her son, and she gave him the name of Moses, “Because," she said, "I drew him out of the water."
Thus Moses obtained the place of a son in the palace of that Pharaoh who once had desired his death, for “The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water; he turneth it whithersoever he will."
Pharaoh was not a name belonging especially to this king. It was a name which meant king, and was given to a great number of those who ruled over Egypt. The king had, besides this title, his own name as Thothmes, Amenophis, or Amosis, but which of such names belonged to the proud and powerful Pharaoh, who to secure his own welfare did not hesitate to condemn the little Hebrew children to a dreadful death, is still a matter of dispute among those who have studied the history of Egypt.
The name of the little rescued child, Moses, is known in all lands, while the name of his oppressor has perished. And the name of one little child who trusts in Jesus will be remembered, when names great among men are forgotten forever; for of those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ it is said:
"Your names are written in heaven." If we have loved His name, He too remembers our names: as this little hymn says.
“Jesus, my Lord! I know Thy name,
Thy name is all my trust;
Thou wilt not put my soul to shame,
Nor let my hope be lost.
Firm as Thy life the promise stands,
And Thou canst well secure
What I've committed to Thy hands
Till the appointed hour.
Then wilt Thou own me by my name
Before Thy Father's face;
And in the new Jerusalem
Give to my soul its place."
Moses was given a share in all the pleasures and all the instructions which the Egyptian palace could afford. He must have had a great deal to learn, many a hard task to master, for the Egyptians were a skilful people, and we read that "Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds."
Some of the things that you learn now, or may have to learn as you grow older, were perhaps learned by Moses, but the reading and writing taught to him was very different from what you have learned. The Egyptians used curious signs like little drawings to express their meaning: when they wanted the letter A, they would draw an eagle; for S, the back of a chair; U was a little duck. Sometimes the picture meant a whole word: a roll of papyrus tied round in the middle meant Book.
Perhaps this seems to you very funny. Do you think you would like these signs better than your own Alphabet? I think the letters we have are more convenient.
Painting, Architecture, Astronomy, and many other useful things were known to the Egyptians, and would come in among the lessons of Moses, but, in the midst of all the grandeur and wisdom and enjoyment, Moses was just as dependent on the Tender Care of God as he had been when he was the weeping baby in the bull-rush ark
What but that Tender Care could have preserved him from the foolish idolatry and wickedness of the Egyptian palace? It was the teaching of God, not the teaching of Pharaoh, which caused him, when he had come to years, to refuse to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter—"Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt."
Here the story of the Child Moses ends, but the story of God's Tender Care never ends, and that story is not the history of Moses only, it is my history, it is your history:— Oh! what a sweet, safe, happy history.
Yes, though you might be one of the sorrowful children, or the poor children, for whom among others you know I am writing, yet what a happy story you may read of your life if you are reading it as the story of the Tender Care of God. And though you may be the happy child, with a loving mother, a kind father, brothers and sisters, a home where all the needs of your mind and body are supplied by those who know them better than you can; all these mercies are not to replace but to teach you the Care of God.
Perhaps you have been thinking that you are not in any danger as Moses was, or perhaps you have said to yourself, “A little helpless baby needs constant care, but I am not helpless." I can quite believe that you are not; that it seems to you more difficult to keep those hands and feet still than to move them: but what do you think of those parts of you which are never told to keep still? What about that heart that goes on, beat, beat, beat, all day and all night long, and must never, never stop? And what about that gentle breathing, up and down, up and down, those lungs that move a hundred muscles in your body, with every breath you draw? Ah, whether it be Belshazzar, the King, wasting in thoughtlessness the last hour of his life, or you, sitting with this book in your safe, snug corner, it is still—"God in whose hand thy breath is."
And then, through the long quiet hours of night, when darkness fills the home, when all the dear ones who care for you, and you yourself, are sleeping fast and still, how precious is that Tender Care of God!
I think you would like to hear of two little children, and how they were kept one night from a danger which drew very near to them: little French children they were, and they lived in a white-washed red-tiled fisherman's cottage, near the edge of a high cliff.
Their Mother had put them into their snug bed, and there they lay sleeping side by side. The beating of waves against the cliff did not disturb them, for they had been used to it all through their little lives, and though the waves roared louder and gusts of wind howled wildly as a great storm arose, the children heard nothing; and when loud peals of thunder rolled right over the red-tiled roof, the little children beneath it still slept on; and the lightning which sparkled through cracks in the shutters was unseen by them.
But there is One who neither slumbers nor sleeps, who "maketh the clouds his chariots and walketh upon the wings of the wind:" His eye was on the sleepers. A terrible roll of thunder shook the little cottage, even while the glaring flash of lightning filled the room; the current of lightning passed through the very bed in which the children lay, but at the foot, just beyond them. The bed was scorched and broken, but the children remained unhurt.
I wonder if there was any one to speak to them of Him who makes “a way for the lightning of the thunder," and whose hand, in tender care, had kept them that night.
Perhaps you know this little verse:—
“The morning bright with rosy light
Has waked me from my sleep;
Father I own Thy love alone,
Thy little one doth keep."
But this Care of God does not always send away the dangers and difficulties, because God is caring not only for our bodies but for our souls also, that precious part of you which will never cease to know and feel as your body may, and by the dangers and difficulties which sometimes lie in your pathway, like stones in the road, or which sometimes you may have got into when carelessness or self-will has led your feet into paths not meant for you, you learn many things. A very little stone in the way would upset the tiny child who is just beginning to walk, if it were not held up by a strong hand, but when it gets beyond a quite tiny child it runs alone, and the little stones it safely passed before give it many a tumble, and then the strong hand comes to pick it up; but at last, through the trips and tumbles and scratches and bruises, it learns to walk with ease as it never would have done if it had been always held by the two strong arms which were around it when it took its first tottering steps. Sometimes a child learns how patient, wise, and watchful is the Care of God, by finding himself delivered out of a trouble into which his own ignorance, or weakness, or heedlessness has brought him, and he learns too that no place is, in itself, safe, but that everywhere, as well as at all times, he has to lean upon the Tender Care of God.
Little Robert was playing, one day, in his father's garden; that would seem to be a very safe place, would it not? but you shall hear the story, and think what would have become of Robert had there been no one to care for him but his own self.
Robert's father had, besides the garden, a large piece of ground on which a dye-house was built. A dye-house, you know, is a great factory where materials of all kinds (as silk, wool, cotton) are dyed or colored. This work requires a great deal of water, and near the dye-house, on one side, there was a large pond which, as it was winter time, was covered with ice; a hole had been made in the ice in order to get at the water beneath, and Robert who, like many other little boys, and I must say girls, was fond of playing with water, was stirring about in this hole with a stick; perhaps he dropped the stick and reached too far after it, or perhaps he slipped on the frozen brink of the pond, I cannot tell you exactly how it happened, but suddenly Robert fell into the watery hole, and the broken ice, like a great hungry mouth, swallowed him up in a moment. This was very near being the end of Robert's little life instead of, as it proved, the opening of a long life; but Robert was wrapped that cold day in a little red cloak, and it caught on the surface of the ice.
Robert's father, in the dye-house, knew nothing of the danger his little boy was in, and he had ordered his workmen all to go, for some business, to a part of the building from which the pond where poor Robert was could not be seen; but the Care which watches over little ones so ordered it that, notwithstanding the orders of the master, some of the workmen were just then close to the windows which looked upon the frozen water, and a workman who saw the little scarlet cloak, wondering what bright thing could be there in the broken ice, ran and pulled out not only the cloak but its poor little wearer, who was by that time almost dying from his long soaking in the icy water?
This little boy learned whose Care it was that had marked his danger when all alone he had slipped into the pond. Was he not something like Moses, drawn out of the water?
Most of you may never have been saved out of any danger such as I have spoken of, but you may look back upon little dangers and little troubles or needs in which you were kept by the Tender Care of God; then do not content yourself with saying—What a good thing I did not hurt myself; or, What a good thing I found what I had lost; or, What a good thing that falling brick fell just at my feet instead of on my head, or that the broken tree fell just at the side where I was not standing; but remember Him whose goodness saved you, and whose hand kept you.
"Could I leave Thy love's enclosure,
Couldst Thou drop me from Thy hand;
Frail as leaf beneath the tempest,
Not one moment could I stand."
Sometimes the child does hurt himself: has he been forgotten by the Tender Care? Oh no, God never forgets. The Care may be hidden in a rough outside, but still it is Tender Care, and, as you grow up, you may find that some of your sweetest lessons of this Tender Care come in rough outsides.
Some kinds of food, you know, are brought to you just ready to eat, but some are covered with what looks very unlike food. If you have ever had a cocoa-nut, you know what hard work had to be done to break the thick, rough shell before you could get at the sweet nut and milk within. Once, when I was a little girl, I was waiting for a music lesson; the hour had struck, but the music-master did not arrive—ten minutes passed, twenty minutes; we felt almost sure the master was not coming, just then he came in, hurried and out of breath.
"I am sorry to be so late, but my little boy has fallen down and broken his leg."
“Where was he?”
“He was in the room with his mother and me, but he climbed on the back of a chair, and fell, with his leg twisted, and broke it; I had often told him that this might happen if he did so."
Ah, perhaps while he lay helpless and suffering, poor little Felix had to learn a lesson of obedience!
But you do not learn your parents' care by falling into fire or water and finding them at hand to rescue you; oh no, it is the every-day looks and words and deeds that teach you the care of your father and mother: the breakfast, prepared for you each morning; the clothes, that are just fitted for you; the warm things, ready when the winter is coming on: the cooler garments that are as welcome in summer's heat; the books for you to read; the playthings and the talk; such a gentle, constant care, that you cannot tell when it began, but find and feel it all around you, just as you find the light of day all round you every morning when you wake.
And so the care of God is to be learned and seen in every-day things; it came round you before you were able to notice its arrival, and it will not, as your parents' care may, ever leave you while you remain a needy creature in this world of needs.
You may grow beyond the need of father's or mother's care: the day may come when you, in your turn, will care for those who once cared for you; but you will never grow too old to need the care of God.
I knew an old man, not long ago, a happy, simple old man; and what were his words, do you think, the day before he died?
He raised himself from the bed in his little cottage room, where he had spent his last winter, and said: "Bless the Lord; He's taken care of me for nearly ninety years; and now He's going to take care of me forever and ever. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits."
His last breath was near, and he wished to use it in blessing God for His Tender Care. Have you ever used your breath in thus thanking the God who cares for you?
Supposing you were to write down all the ways in which you need and find this care of God, you would soon fill a book; and if every child made such a book, how many books there would be! How many children God daily remembers! you could not count them; then, consider the number of men and women of all ages who need the care of God. Oh, what a great multitude! It is a number we cannot even picture to ourselves; yet the men, women and children are but a part of that vast Creation which daily receives from the liberal hand and tender care of God.
Did you ever think of this?
“The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest thine hand and satisfiest the desire of every living thing."
“He sendeth the springs into the valleys which run among the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field: The wild asses quench their thirst. By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches."
“He causeth grass to grow for the Cattle."
Any of you who have lived near a farm may know how much care and feeding cattle and flocks need; what then becomes of those multitudes of God's creatures whom no man ever cares for?
The chamois, among his mountain rocks, whom hand of man can never reach until the sad day when he leaves his lofty home as the prey of the hunter? All the wild beasts? “The young lions roar after their prey and seek their meat from God." Who cares for the “things creeping innumerable," the inhabitants of this great and wide sea? Who supplies the birds in those deep forests where man's foot seldom treads? And the little birds nearer home, who generally make haste to fly away if you come near them? Who "feeds the young ravens when they cry?" Psa. 104:27, 2827These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. 28That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good. (Psalm 104:27‑28) will give you the answer to all this.
And then, there are things which cannot cry out; the silent herbs and flowers, growing in the wilderness where there is no man. Who sends down that rain on the earth where no man is? to satisfy the desolate and waste ground, and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth.
It was one of these little bits of green in the wilderness, drinking of the rain of heaven, which once spoke comfort to the heart of a man in deep distress. Mungo Park was his name; a great traveler. He was in the midst of one of the vast deserts which spread over parts of Africa; suddenly a band of robbers surrounded him, and took away all that he possessed, even to his little store of food; and almost all the clothes he had on; then they left him, these wicked, hard-hearted men, alone, but for the neighborhood of the wild beasts which prowled among the thickets. No wonder that, as he looked around him, he was ready to despair; at this moment, his eyes fell upon a beautiful little tuft of moss; this reminded him of the God whose hand had formed and whose care had preserved that tiny thing in freshness and beauty, in so obscure a place; committing himself therefore to that same care he took courage, and, after enduring many hardships, reached a place where he found friends ready to help and protect him.
"All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small;
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all,
Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings;
He made their glowing colors,
He made their shining wings."
Yes, dear children, everything which God has made, as well as everything in your own daily life, may speak to you, if your ears are attentive, of His Tender Care, but there is something beyond this, beyond the care that birds and beasts enjoy which God would have you to know. He would have you to know His Love: the Love which has made a way for you to be brought near to Him, a way by which you can know what His heart feels about you. All the gifts you see around you, great as they may be, are not great enough or good enough to make known to you the Love of God.
Only one Gift is great enough for this—It is the Gift of Jesus.
“God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
"In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins."
Yes, that Gift of God, even Jesus, who died for us, that we might have all our sins forgiven, and might be made clean and fit for God, is the only way by which we can know the Love of God. Every child who trusts in Jesus is a child of God; he can know God as his Father. And every child is invited to trust in Jesus, and to share in the Love of God, for Jesus said, “It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish."
“Oh! listen to His voice,
And trust in His great love;
Down to your little heart it comes
From His great heart above;
To make you free from all the sin,
And holy, happy, safe with Him."
It is sweet to know the Care of God, but that would not be enough for you, your heart needs to know the Love of God; the Love from which nothing will then be able to separate you, the love which will never drop you, but will keep you safe and happy forever and ever: for Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who gave His life for the Sheep, said, "I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand."
How very sweet is the Tender Care of God to the heart of the child who has believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, for it is the Care of your Father who loves you, and “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of."
Alone, by Egypt's river's brink,
The helpless infant lies
No mother near to tend or cheer,
Or soothe his feeble cries.
Who shall befriend, preserve him there?
He rests beneath God's Tender Care.
Among the tall Papyrus flags,
His sister, Miriam, stands:
She waits to see who next will be
Brought there by His commands;
Who ruleth all things everywhere,
And keeps the Child beneath His Care.
He mightiest foes to friends can turn;
Though Pharaoh's daughter come,
The Babe shall find her heart is kind,
Her palace now his home;
The danger o'er; but even there
He needs, he tastes God's Tender Care.
And whether kept by parents' love
We dwell in sheltered home,
Or day by day, on life's rough way,
With lonely heart may roam;
In every age, and everywhere,
We need alike God's Tender Care.
Not one too great this Care to need,
Too small this Care to have;
No distant place it can't embrace,
No time it cannot save;
From infancy to hoary hair,
Each hour we live by Tender Care.
The thirsty flower in desert soil,
The dewdrop cloth provide.
The Raven's cry brings his supply;
All Nature's satisfied:
Birds, beasts and flowers daily share
The great Creator's Tender Care.
But we are called, by faith in Christ
Who died for us, to know
Th' Eternal Love, that from above,
Doth all this care bestow-
The blessedness of those who share,
As children, in a Father's Care.