"_My heart
rejoiceth in the Lord._" Alas! alas! how does even the Christian heart,
which has professed to be satisfied with God, and content with his holy
will, often depart from him, and "provoke him to jealousy" with many
idols! Inordinate affection for some earthly object absorbs the soul
which vowed to love him supremely. In its undisguised excess, it says
to the beloved object, "Give me your heart; Jehovah must be your
salvation, but let me be your happiness. A portion of your time, your
attention, your service, He must have; but your daily, hourly thoughts,
your dreams, your feelings, let them all be of me--of mine." Oh for such
a love as she possessed! We should not then love our children less, but
more, far more than now, and with a better, happier love--a love from
which all needless anxiety would flee--a perfect love, casting out fear.
Ye who feel that death to your loved ones would not so distress you as
the fear of leaving them among baleful influences--who tremble in view
of the evil that is in the world, remember where Hannah left, apparently
without a misgiving, her gentle child. With Eli,--who could not even
train his own sons in the fear of the Lord--with those sons who made
themselves vile, and caused Israel to transgress,--she left him _with
the Lord_. "Go ye and do likewise," and remember, also, He is the God of
the whole earth.
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