165

SERMON XVIII.

A Short Harvest.

PREACHED IN 1879.

PSALM CXXXVI. 25.

66 WHO GIVETH FOOD TO ALL FLESH; FOR HIS MERCY ENDURETH FOR EVER."

E would be but a sorry creator, who could make men and animals requiring food and nourishment,

and yet had not power to create food and nourishment for them; he would be but a poor father, who could give life to his offspring, and yet had not love enough towards them to provide their necessary maintenance; at the same time, he might be a very wise father who would stint his children of their ordinary food, if he saw their appetites waxing too gross; or if he thought such denial would act as a chastisement and subdue their unruly wills.

"O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is gracious, and His mercy endureth for ever; who giveth food to all flesh; for His mercy endureth for ever."

Let us consider, then, the power of God, the beneficence of God, and the discipline of God in respect of our food; and see whether, in each respect, even this last, which touches us closely, it is not very meet, right, and our bounden duty to give thanks unto the Lord.

"All flesh "-two little words, yet how much do they include not merely men and the larger quadrupeds, not merely birds and fishes and reptiles; but tiny atoms of animals, of the number and the species even of which the microscope will probably never be able to inform us, tenanting as they do the little drop of water, or floating indistinguishable in the plains of air. To these, to all flesh God giveth food! Yet think how various must be that food. How many hundreds, thousands of species of animals there may be we cannot tell; yet each probably requires its one, its two, its three or more particular sorts of food to keep it in health. A standard book on Botany [Lindley's], some years old now, informs us that when it was published there were 92,000 separate species of plants known; here is some part of the rich variety of food which God has provided for all flesh. Think, moreover, of the various organizations of animals; how some, like the lion, the tiger, the cat, the wolf, the dog, live on flesh; the cattle on grass; many birds on seeds; many on insects; think how the whole tribe of fishes breathe air in a very different way from what we do, and find both their air and their food in the waters. Then think of man, to whom God has given dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth- exercising this dominion in part by eating the crops which the earth yields, in part by eating such animals as suit his appetite or his fancy and

surely you will with the Psalmist praise the power of God who is able thus to give food to all flesh.

He

II. Yet notice further the beneficence of God. not only could but would feed all flesh. You have noticed the caterpillars feeding upon the green leaves of some tree. How came they there? By the law of nature's God, the parent butterfly before she died laid her eggs in such a place that when the following spring those eggs should burst, the little brood would find themselves surrounded by the very food which is best for them, and without which they would die. Thus God gives food to them. Bees are taught of God to store up in summer the honey which is necessary to keep them during the winter,-at any rate in countries which produce no honey-bearing winter flowers; for we are told that some bees which were imported into the warm parts of Australia, though they stored honey the first year they were there, declined to store it the second year, for they learnt by that short experience that they had reached a warm land flowing with honey all the year round and not needing any store to be laid by for winter. gives food to the bee.

Thus, in another way, God

But to man God gives it otherwise. Man plants his seeds, he reaps his harvest, he stores it up, he grinds his corn, he bakes his bread; and thus in the simplest stages of society God giveth food to him; for though man does these things, it is the laws of nature, that is the laws of God, which in physiology make the seed to germinate, grow, and ripen; in mechanics make the flour to come out ground from the mill ; in fermentation and heat make the dough to rise and the bread to come from the oven grateful and appetizing to our palates.

You and I do not live in quite so simple a stage of life. The tea, the coffee, the sugar of which we drink at breakfast was not grown on our farms; the rice, the sago, the currants, the pepper, which find their way to our dinner tables are not produced by our toil or skill; nay, if this England of ours had to depend for bread, for a single year, upon the corn annually grown within our four seas, our population would die by hundreds of thousands from sheer starvation; she bringeth her food from afar, from America, Canada, Russia, Egypt. Thus it is for us that God giveth us food.

But to the denizens of the town, who scarcely know wheat from barley, or barley from rye; whose knowledge of the plough and how to use it is scant, whose science of farming is perhaps painfully elementary and ludicrously inaccurate, God giveth food differently. He is the God of society no less than of nature, of the town no less than of the country; and by having constituted man capable of inventing coin and currency, of framing contracts, of buying and selling, of employing and of being employed, of earning and of paying wages, He has so provided that those who never see a green field above once or twice, perhaps, a year, may still, by exchange and purchase, get to themselves their necessary portions of meat in due season. Nay, in a country like ours, the very widow and orphan, the cripple and the paralytic, the destitute and, I add with shame, the spend-thrift and the profligate, need not starve; for there is open to them through God's having touched the hearts of living men or moulded the institutions of our country, the dole and the almshouse, the offertory and the alms of the faithful, the relieving officer and the workhouse. Thus, again, God giveth food to all flesh, for His mercy endureth for ever.

.III. I approach in the 3rd place a difficult part of my subject,—not difficult in itself, provided you all really trusted and loved God; but difficult, seeing our faith at the best of times is weak, our love tepid, our thankfulness slow to rouse. If, when the harvest is a confessedly good one, I could possibly only extort a languid thankfulness from your heart, and a tiny coin from your purse, what can I hope to do when the English harvest is confessedly far from first-rate ! Nay, I should not be astonished to discover that some actually keep away from all Harvest Thanksgivings this year, with the intention-perhaps not quite so plainly clear to themselves, yet, nevertheless, with the distinct intention. to spite God. It is very shocking. "Surely God has made us and not we ourselves; we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand." Is there not the scant herbage of the mountain, as well as the deep dank grass of the lea? and does not the good shepherd change the pasture of his flock from time to time, sometimes giving them the scantier and sometimes the fuller meal? Nay, hear holy Job, "what? shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil?" I ask you then to bear with me while I try to touch on God's making the measure and the price of our food a discipline to us.

i. I do not hesitate for a moment to say, that since the good times in our mining and manufacturing districts of a few years ago set in, there has been an observable increase of self-indulgence among all classes; a self-indulgence which has shown itself in many ways, gross or refined. It is nothing novel; the tendency is always present with us; but the opportunity at that time was most favourable to its gratification; and, though the legitimate means of such