The Nineteenth of November.

IN HIM WE LIVE --- Acts 17:27, 28.

"The Lord is not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being." --- Acts 17:27, 28.

"Even the very hairs on your head are all numbered." --- Luke 7:7.

Oh the close and tender love of the Lord over his people. Nothing is so mean, but it is under the providence of God, since even the least can either hurt or profit the soul. And how sweet is it to observe his footsteps, even in the minutest things, and to be satisfied that we may trust our greater and lesser concerns to his care! O Lord, grant that I may never swerve from, nor do anything without thee; but that my goings in and goings out may be always done in thy presence, as if I had to do with none but thee; nay, as if we both lived together alone in the world.

Oh that I could transact all my affairs with thee alone, and in all places look upon thee as if thou wert only a God for me. Let me carefully mark the inward workings of thy grace, and the outward tokens of thy providence, so as daily to have a true sense of thy gracious presence in everything, more or less important, and thereby to be ever strengthened in faith, and kept in a composed state of mind; considering that nothing happens by mere chance, but all is wisely ordered by thy providential care to our good; firmly believing, if anything goes contrary to expectation, that something better will follow in its stead, if we only can be quiet and wait the time.

God that must stoop to view the skies,
And bow to see what angels do,
Down to our earth he casts his eyes,
And bends his footsteps downwards too.

He overrules all mortal things,
And manages our mean affairs;
On humble souls the King of kings
Bestows his counsels and his cares.

Devotion for November 19