there is a Eunice teaching Timothy from a child the Scriptures, there will be a Timothy an evangelist and an apostle, teaching the rest of mankind. It is the very law that God has struck into the economy of things, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” CHAPTER XII. THE WANDERER'S CRY. "O Lord, thou seest from yon starry height, Before my spirit, and an image fair As the reflected image in a glass Doth meet the look of him who seeks it there, "Thou God seest me."- GEN. xvi. 13. THE short but precious sentiment, "Thou God seest me," is unfolded and illustrated at great length by David in Psalm cxxxix. "Thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me." The omnipresence of Deity is the great truth obviously deducible from the words of Hagar and David. God is the sound that is reverberated from every point of creation. "God" is the light that is reflected from every object in the heights, in the depths, in all space, in the length and breadth of infinitude and eternity; and the truth is, not what we are prone to admit, God was, because we trace his foot prints in history-but God is now as really, as truly, as actually, as when he dwelt between the cherubim, or was the brightness of the Father's glory, made flesh, and dwelt among mankind. This God, thus omnipotent and omnipresent, in the beautiful language of the refugee Hagar, "seeth me." That me may be the pronoun representative of the humblest and most downtrodden of the human family. That me may represent one whom no missionary visits with his consolation, whom no friend follows with his sympathy, dwelling in solitude and obscurity, and surrounded by circumstances that repel the too fastidious taste of the world; yet from the heart of that me can arise the majestic sentiment that sheds on the humblest the greatest dignity, "Thou God seest me." There is no darkness that eye cannot penetrate, no depth that cognizance cannot reach, no obscurity of circumstance and state in the midst of which God cannot see the jewel that he is preparing and polishing for his the despised of earth, but the elect of heaven, whom he is maturing for a kingdom and an inheritance that fadeth not away. crown This precious thought-the Omnipresence or Omniscience of God—is applicable, not only to us as individuals, as I shall afterwards show, in its practical bearing, but to all things. The humblest field flower that grows by the way-side, the tiniest insect that goes to sleep upon the rose leaf, and cannot be detected by the keenest eye, the minutest organism that the microscope reveals, is as clearly visible to God as the brightest of the planets is visible to us, and more so. It is the grand characteristic of this all seeing God, that whilst he regulates the orbs in their spheres, whilst he wields the red lightnings with his hand, he superintends the poor sparrow that falls wing wearied to the ground, and traces the descent of the grey hair that drops from the old man's head. There is nothing too vast to be beyond his grasp, and there is nothing so exquisitely minute as to be below his inspecting care and omnipresence. But not only does God see, but he takes care of the minutest things also. It is most remarkable, that those objects in nature which the naked eye cannot detect, because of their minuteness, are as exquisitely and as beautifully made as the most magnificent product of creative power. The tints upon a heath bell, or upon a wild flower such as Mungo Park saw in the desert, are as elaborately painted as if that little heath flower were meant to last for ever; there seems to have been lavished upon a beetle's wing as much artistic skill as upon fixed stars, and suns, and moons, and mighty systems. Nothing gives us a greater apprehension of God than what we discover of him in minute and in little things. What is true of objects in nature is no less true of His living and responsible family. God not only sees us, but he takes care of us. God is as much in a Christian's home as he was with Paul in the third heaven. He is as much in a Christian's heart as he ever was between the cherubim or on the mercy-seat in the Holy of Holies. He is in a Christian's bosom more truly than he is in grand cathedral or in splendid church: none can be nearer to a Christian than God-none can be nearer to God than that Christian. He is here, not there- God is and acts now, not was and has returned into the depth of silence for ever. It is quite true, we do not see God. only; but when the soul shall be We now see matter disengaged from its The greatest forces in material tenement, it shall open its eyes upon spiritual But the thought, "Thou God seest me," is less a speculation for philosophers, it is more a practical lesson for Christians. To the ungodly man this thought must surely be intolerable. I do not wonder at the man who lives in sin constantly trying to keep at bay this to him withering conviction, "Thou God seest me." That evil thought which now nestles in some soul's most sequestered nook, which that person would not reveal for the whole world to his neighbor who sits next him, to his son, his wife, his brother, his sister, is just as luminous and transparent in God's eye, as if the light of the meridian sun were on it, and the highest pinnacle in creation were, the place on which it is exhibited. "Thou God seest me." A |