CHILD OF SICKNESS! bound down for years on that lonely pillow!--the night-lamp thy companion--disease wasting thy cheeks and furrowing thy brow--weary days and nights appointed thee--tell me, _Where is thy God?_ He is here, is the reply; His presence takes loneliness from my chamber and sadness from my countenance. His promises are a pillow for my aching head,--they point me onwards to that better land where "the inhabitant shall no more say, I am sick!"
CHILD OF POVERTY! _Where is thy God?_ Can He visit this rude dwelling? Can God's promises be hung on these broken rafters? Can the light of His word illumine that cheerless hearth and sustain that bent figure shivering over its mouldering ashes? Yes! He is here. The lips of Truth that uttered the beatitude, "_Blessed be ye poor_," have not spoken in vain. Bound down by chill penury--forsaken and forgotten in old age--no footstep of mercy heard on my gloomy threshold--no lip of man to drop the kindly word--no hand of succour to replenish the empty cupboard--that God above has not deserted me. He has led me to seek and lay up my treasure in a home where want cannot enter, and where the beggar's hovel is transformed into the kingly mansion!
BEREAVED ONE! _Where is thy God?_ Where is the arm of Omnipotence thou wast wont to lean upon? Has _He_ forgotten to be gracious? Has He mocked thy prayers, by trampling in the dust thy dearest and best, and left thee to pine and agonise in the bitterness of thy swept heart and home? Nay, He is _here_! He has swept down my fondest idol, but it was in order that He himself might occupy the vacant seat. I know Him too well to question the faithfulness of His word, and the fidelity of His dealings. I have never known what a God He was, till this hour of bitter trial overtook me! There was a "need be" in every tear--every death-bed--every grave!
DYING MAN! the billows are around thee--the world is receding--the herald symptoms of approaching dissolution are gathering fast around thy pillow--the soul is pluming its wings for the immortal flight; ere memory begins to fade, and the mind becomes a waste,--ere the names of friends, when mentioned, will only be answered by a dull, vacant look, and then the hush of awful silence,--tell me, ere the last lingering ray of consciousness and thought has vanished, _Where is thy God?_