NS. 118: 8,9. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. in princes. That is, it is better to trust in the lord than to put confide in men, taking mankind by [and] large and even than in the leaders of man who are supposed to be [men and] the best of them. [By this] It is not meant that no [one] man at all is to be at all trusted that everybody is unworthy of confidence on the part of anybody. For such is not the built; [and, if it was, there could be mentioned no truth more sad or sick- ening]. Men do, and ought to, have confidence in one ano- ther, not only, but must have, or society itself would fall to pieces, and each person, (if he could think life to be worth having in such terms), would be compelled to live fenced around by whose [spiritual hatred] walls of gloom [which should] resembling those the grave [itself presents]. This [world] earth would be [?] + Be Safe [?] Oct 1881 [Clarksville ?] Trust in the Lord By Rev. Joseph R Wison [?] Stated Clerk of the General Assembly an absolutely intolerable abode were there no way of spiritual confidence. [I suppose that] No doubt there are person here and there [a wretched sample] who know little or nothing of the experience of a confiding disposition -who go through their ice-clad live from one frozen day to another without finding, or caring to find, a single human being in whom to lean [even for an hour,] - self-poised and self-sufficing - who long for no friendship and yearn for no love. [I supposed, I say, that there are such persons; but I have never myself seen would, a monsters]; [A specimen of this species of human monster ; and they must be a ever rarer than men who, double-headed, or than men who have been born with a solitary limb: objects attractive of that a shuddering curiosity, which, strangely enough, people pay to have gratified.] Why, even the wild animals must have their co-helpers and their alliances of mutual trust. The lion seldom hunts alone: the tiger is most defiant of danger when he has a companion near. It would seem that where there is intelligence [the least degree of intelligence] to any degree, whether in man or beast, there also a feeling of dependence, and in this feeling [of dependence] is imbedded the principle of confidence. It is only the insane who wish to be always by themselves. Or who care nothing [for the fellowship that promises aid in extremities of need which they seldom or never feel.] Far from God, therefore, we must conclude, is the purpose to forbid the trust which one person places in another, and which he cannot but place so long as he retains his sanity, or so long as he remains true to the very make-up of his being. This natural interchanging of trust is in obedience the of His own laws, a law impressed as deeply upon our [personal] individual and social manhood, as is the law of gravitation upon the material universe. The great Lord simply tells us that it is better to trust in Him than in men, or in the princes of new: - not that it is a bad and a wrong thing - on mutual confidence no - it is a good and a right thing: - but there is that which, in the compassion, is better. He would not have use to cease trusting whatsoever creature deserves to be trusted, but would have us not to step in this, as if thus we had reached the [farthest] highest point to which we are capable of climbing in the same direction, and which we all are bound to reach if we would trust in a manner worthy of the nature God has given us, and unto the finest and noblest results. The truth is, that, in grilding to the prompting of our implanted principle of trust, we are apt to go too far. We are apt to trust each other, not too little but too much: i.e., we are prone to expect too great a benefit from [our mere creaturely trust other] the trust that terminates upon the mere creature. That benefit is, indeed, con- -siderable - often a very large source out of which a heartfelt gratitude should sonfully spring, - it may, however, be easily overestimated: - for, always - yes, always, there is an element of disappointment in the most reward- -ful confidence that one human being ever placed in another -something being still lacking to render the satis- -faction complete. In other words, no person can ever do for another person all that is wanted. Take even that instance of trust which is, perhaps, the purest, and the fullest of heart-ease: the instinctive trust of a little child in its mother. However [complete] [?] the [trust] trusting child and however deserving of it the trusted parent; there is many an ache of [the] [her] this childs affections which lies beyond the most soothing touch of the most [loving] sympathizing mother: [ache] achings which it is compelled to sob out upon its lonely pillows in tears which can give no account of themselves to the very fondest of maternal coaxing: - tears which thereby declare[ing] their need of a hand to dry them up which the whole world [earth itself] does not [possess] extend to any one: [a hand that, [?] through out of the thin curtain quickly comes to the little ones help,] the hand [of nature speak] that tells of His presence whose love is beyond [and better than] a mothers and better than hers. Thompson || And [so] it is just the same around the entire circle of human trust, [which] where it [terminates] touches alone upon a human object. It is a trust that is always a more or less defeated trust - [and] is thrown back upon itself - having, at this point - or at that, missed its mark. [I do not mean, of course that It may have accomplished much but it has achieved by no means all.] There are [not] indeed many matters in which men do not vainly trust each other: the trusters getting all they [wanted] expected from the trust. [I am referring, of course to that big thing called happiness.] You may strust a neigh- -bor with portions of [?] [?] - and find him true to [?] [trust] confidence. You may safely trust him not to lie when you are in wanted of his testimony. In a hundred supposable cases, you can securely [safely] trust; can even sometimes go so far as to trust another to play with your very heart strings [with your inmost heart] as is done every day where love exchanges itself for corresponding love, or for the promise of it; and yet you may in, all this, not have to regret what you have [?] [not trust in vain. But [what I mean to say] [affairs] your trust will be disappointed if you expect to get [all] from man be he ever so faithful, be he ever so honorable, be he ever so eminent for trustwor- -thiness - be ever so large in resources - all that your soul desires. You perhaps gets the things he cannot give, [however loudly, however honestly, even he may promise it. He is not competent, e.g. to give you happiness, not even that amount of happiness you have thought he was [him] in a condition to bestow, and which he himself [thought] believed he was. Wives and husbands (to take an extreme instance) trust each other for happiness, as they ought to do - thinking that they have only to draw upon the rich treasures of their mutual affection for as much as they can want. Well, do they always get it? So there not [always] a drawback - sometimes nameless, yet real and felt? Is there not, often, an ache like that of the child [I have mentioned], which no quantity or quality of human love, even the most self-sacrificing, can soothe, - an ache which belongs to the souls own independent and unapproachable individuality, and which, ac- cordingly, it must just learn to endure; unless, indeed, it is at- -[?] to ascent to a far higher and far choicer fountain of good than any that is filled from an earthly source? Or, take the instance of one who trusts another in a part- nership whose object is to acquire wealth [The] and at the same time current friendship which has already stood the test of years. This chosen partner is all right - he discharges his whole duty - his undivided talent is devoted to the business - there is nothing about him which is not completely satisfying. The result is, ever-increasing riches. And yet, somehow you are now and again forced to feel that he has not done all that you had expected of him. You have his utmost help, and still his help has not conferred happiness, even though it has brought wealth. You do not blame him - you are even sure that he is not at fault - nay, you are certain that the greater share of your success is what he has achieved. So far you have not trusted in vain; but when you trusted him for something more which it was not his to bestow with all his other be- stowments; you trusted that in his many helpings towards accumulations of property, he would also add to it more + more peace of mind: - or that both of you together would do this for in this respect you trusted not only his capabilities but also your own [yourself] :- and he has not disappointed you any more than you have disappointed yourself or disappointed him. The gold is these but not the good you had thought was in it. There is still a void unfilled. The partnership has proved a failure on the highest ground of all: the ground where contentment ought [seemed] to be awaiting your summers. No neighbor is richer than you in merchandise and money, but many a neighbor may not be so poor in the matter of that true [thing] treasure: heart-sunshine: the one only thing that was worth your partners trouble and your own, to gain and lay up. So, the ambitious man trusts to the people to lift him into [?] of position. They raise him as high as he wished: higher even than once he had dreamed. They lavish upon them their honors and their stations. They place him at the very top. He is grateful; but as he guaffs the bowl of [his] their laudations [gifts[ he by and by becomes conscious of a want that he had fondly hoped would, also, be met in the [stronger] wine-taste of his gratified desires. Elevation has not made him happy: it has only made him cold, and lonely, and envied, maybe hated by some. The people had not that to give which comes exclusively [alone] from a [self] satisfied mind - a mind restful, and on a rock of [satisfaction] security, this being absent, all the rest resembles ashes. He evidently needs to go to a source of power higher still. Please and princes can confer many favors upon those whom they greatly regard, and who know how to trust or to count them: - but they cannot confer that smile which lights up the living-room of the soul, where the [is] man is at home with his own thoughts, and where he holds converse with his immortality: - and if that room remains dark, no lamps burning in any or in all the other[s] rooms can suffice to illumine the great house. Bradford In what has [I have] thus been suggested, I have referred you alone to the fact that, for many of the things which are considered desirable, you [can] have good reason to trust your fellow man. Shall I now turn the picture, however, and refer you to another and quite opposite fact - the fact that your fellow man often deceives you even when you trust him for such common assistances and even for such [?] as every one needs from those with whom he mingles? In how many of yr. acquaintances, [and] in how many of your so-called friends may you confidently trust when you are in actual want either of their sympathy of is of their helping hand. How long would it take you to count the number of such as seem trustworthy when all is prospering with you, but the [whose shallow] shallowness of whose assurances of good- will is discov- -ered when a friend in need would be a friend indeed? Set the broken and scattered hopes of a too confiding inexperience, the world over, answer the mournful question. I am not disposed to view with a gloomy eye the world about me - nor should any of you be so disposed. It becomes us all, on the contrary, to look with as cheerful an aspect as possible upon the characters and conduct of the members of the common family to which we all belong, to they very meanest member of which use all related by a blood which is as old as the creation - and multitudes of whom are far better than ourselves. But, it cannot be denied, even by on who gives the utmost possible credit to the fair institutions and the fine [promises] words of his brother-inners, that their [words] promises are often larger than their perform- -ances ~ and that the man who acts upon a contrary belief must at some critical hours of his life pay the penalty of his faith in not a few grievous disappointments. In trust, is not the whole earth a scene, throughout, of the war which men are waging with men because of the ill-starred trusts the have mistakenly placed in each other. How largely, how variously, how distressfully could this be illustrated, were the unpleasant task a necessary one. Your courts of justice are full of the evidences of this fact. Every person knows it in many a bitter experience:- or may too easily learn the sad lesson from what others are able to tell him of their experience. On every account, therefore is it not better to trust in the Lord than to trust in any men? and for the reasons I have given: no such earthly hurt brings a steadfast happiness - and such happiness [this] is what we all are pursuing [and] rightly pursuing, too. Only, let us learn what true happiness is in what it consists and we are at full liberty to secure it if we can, God himself being the approving witness of our efforts. But now the question arises - does God, even on the part of these who think they do know what happiness is make happy those who trust in sin? I confess that it does not always look as if He did. It must be ac- -knowledged that He leaves many of His trusters poor and forlorn, tossed + torn; and that there is not one of them, however, favored in a worldly point of view, who does not have reason, [?]. to shed tears of more or less racking of grief or utter groans of more or less remorseful sorrow. You cannot listen to their public prayers or their private petitionings without feeling convinced that they have that to cause them unhappiness of which even the trusters in man know nothing, and at which they sometimes are [?] to wonder. How, then, can it be said that it is better to trust in the Lord. Well, were there no others [satisfactory] answer to such a question, might we not wisely rest the whole matter on this: He has said so: and does He not know? Is not the entire history of our race open to His view as it cannot be to our own? and has He not seen the long result of such trusting as man places in his fellow-man when there was also no higher person in which he confided? Does God need to be told of that weakness in man which causes him, even in his best estate, to be as a broken-need to when solves [?] his whole overnight, leans upon him; - does He need to be told of one mans treachery to another, - of the selfishness which everywhere [asserts] reveals itself [its purpose to us] in the intercourse of life - of the measures which gets all it can whilst giving only as little as it [dare] [can] may - of the inhumanity, even, which pushes dependance to the wake when it would trust to the stronger but dare not? And is not God so far acquainted with what He Himself [man so as to] is as to know that He at least is a fit object of mans trust, being so full of mercy so full of might, so full of truth, so full of wisdom, so full of tenderness. We may well therefore, take His word for it that we had better whose our trust in Him that even in the princes of men, who, to say it most, are as frail as others, and who, to say the least, are as false. Thompson But, then, [why] where is the happiness of trusting in Him is a question still asked. Why it is found in the very act [itself] of our trust itself. For what is hap- -piness? It is not a thing - which you can see, or handle, or get into your embrace. It is not what you may have: it is what you are. You do not need to go one step out of yourself for it. Gold does not contain it. Pleasures [does] do not conduct to it. Fortune-building does not construct it. Industry does not collect it. It is a possession of the soul rather is the soul possessing itself. In is a principle and a power within, where no outward circumstances can intrude to [disturb] place a distinctive hand upon it [lighting] lighted a candle at the centre of us, which no wind can. It is being what we ought to be: right with ourselves and right with our God: a rightness that hall last therefore as long as the soul shall last, i.e., so long as God shall last. Out of such rightness - planted as it is in our very immortality -springs happiness, in the just sense of [this] that much-used and much-abused word. And it is to bring about this supreme rightness that we all exhorted to put our trust in the Lord ~ which is altogether the same as exhorting us to [become like Him] love Him: for, otherwise, to trust Him were impossible: love being indeed only another name for Confidence. It may then be said with an assurance that nothing can [?], that they who thus love God [in] are they who are right, in the very [highest] deepest meaning of the term: right at the core of their being: right as the saints and as the angels are. But whilst this is true, it is also true that His childrens trustful love is not yet complete - and it is because of their struggles and of their Fathers disciplines to make it complete, that they experience most of the sorrows - sorrows which are themselves more to be learned than the [?] of the world to which I have [?]: They trust, but do not trust perfectly; and will not until they see Him as He is, in the home towards which they climb. In thus climbing, however, they needs must suffer - for the tide is high, and it is both steep and rugged - where progress is assured only at the expense of toil and trouble. Nevertheless, with all that it costs, it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confi- -dence in man: forso great a trust must have a correspondingly great issue, so supreme a trust must have a correspondingly supreme reward. It is a word that never was broken [and which nothing can ever break - in a wisdom that never was baffled, and which nothing can ever baffle - in a watchfulness that never has been thrown off its guard and which nothing can ever throw off its guard - in a will [which] whose decrees of good have been and must always be sovereign - and in a welfare that is as certain as eternity. It is trusting in Him who has proved Himself the one friend of the friendless - the one Father of the fatherless the one who is Faithful when all others [were] are faithless. It is trusting the only Being who can destroy for us our sins, and dry up for us our sorrows, and bestow upon us a salvation compared with which the utmost blessedness of earth is as a dying lamp to the living Sun. It is trusting for peace of heart whilst loving, for strength of heart when expiring and for wealth of heart when the hearses of heaven burst upon the view. It is trusting unto holiness the fountain of happiness. It is trusting God - as God is in Christ - which says all in one [rich] exhaustless word. [[?]: [?] so far as a manly self-reliance may [?] trust in others so far as one [?] -picious hope may render possible - but, at the best, these trustings - one and all - fail you at the Grave. He - only he - who has learned the secret of that trust which [?] God for his all-in-all, is safe, is [?] in [?] on which to build the happiness that endures. And he learns this secret the moment he gets right view of God as God is in Christ.] Trust in the Lord By Rev Joseph R Wilson [?] Stated Clerk of the General Assembly.