Caress

“ O almighty God and Father, who art ever ready to help, Thou seest the great trouble and danger in which we are living; we know of no counsel or help, and have no strength of ourselves to come out of trouble, therefore our eyes look unto Thee, who alone art our consolation, refuge and helper, and hast said: Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. Our heart clings to Thy word of promise and in childlike humility and confidence seeks Thy face. ”

“ To the public at large—to the vast mass of your fellow-creatures around you—to the multitudinous body of human beings that sink under illness, or suffer from pain—to the whole of that infinite family which has bodily, not unmixed with mental affliction, for its heritage upon earth—to all who live, and breathe, and feel, and share with yourselves the common lot of suffering—here, in their whole heighth and depth, and length and breadth, are your responsibilities of one kind. ”

“ All day long I find so much to interest me, and so many thoughts about my children fill my mind, that I hardly find time to think of my own feelings. Care is a blessing."
With what a patient, heavenly smile this is said! How much of life's true philosophy is contained in that closing sentence! Yes, care is a blessing. What countless thousands would, but for daily care, be unutterably miserable. And yet we are ever trying to throw off care; to rise into positions where we will be free from action or duty. ”

“ Can you even persuade yourself that it is founded on reason? Oh, my child! take care?—As yet, you only indulge in charming originalities of conduct, poetical eccentricities, sweet and vague reveries—but the tendency is fatal, the downward course irresistible. Take care, take care!—the healthful, graceful, spiritual portion of your intelligence has yet the upper hand, and imprints its stamp upon all your extravagances; but you do not know, believe me, with what frightful force the insane portion of the mind, at a given moment, develops itself and strangles up the rest. ”

“ Then, when I reflect that, not satisfied with sympathising with sufferings of which you can form no idea from actual experience, you aid me with the most salutary counsels, and guide me, step by step, in the new and delightful path of virtue and goodness pointed out by you to relieve a weary and worn-out heart, oh, my lord, what treasure of all that is good must your mind contain! From what source have you drawn so large a supply of tender pity for the woes of all? ”

“ His advice is to cast all their care, or all care of themselves, upon God. "Throw your cares, which are so cutting and distracting, which wound your souls and pierce your hearts, upon the wise and gracious providence of God; trust in him with a firm composed mind, for he careth for you. He is willing to release you of your care, and take the care of you upon himself. He will either avert what you fear, or support you under it. ”

“ Every day, every moment, He careth, goes on caring, for you. Not only thinking of you and watching you, but working for you; making things come right, so that everything should be just the best that could happen to you. Not managing the great things, and leaving the little things to arrange themselves; but giving loving care to the least, the very least things that concern you. Even in some tiny little trouble which no one else seems to care about, "He careth;" or when every one else is too much taken up with other things to attend to you, "He careth for you." ”

“ I tell you, men, what you have done to these, my kindred, you have done to me.
22. You have insulted me in your own home; I cannot stay. I will go forth and find that child, that woman and that man, and give them help until my life's blood all has ebbed away.
23. I call it pleasure when I help the helpless, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, and speak good words of cheer to those unloved, discouraged and depressed. ”

“ It seemed as if nature's fragile flower, having lost all its own dew, was—notwithstanding its scented baths and ablutions—parched by an inward fire, and languished for that water which quenches all thirst, for that milk which flows from the deep fountain of man's virility. Every month, for a few days, that bloody fiend shattered her and laid her at the mercy of a man's lust, making her rave for those caresses for which she had been created. ”

“ Whereas if you try to accept the duty as our Lord showed it, and to carry with you joyfully in such acceptance those who are nearest and dearest to you, you will find that a large and true imagination will show you the place which every duty should hold in your lives; you will not find any human being so away but that your sympathy will reach, and your desire to help will tell in due degree if the need of help comes. ”

“ But if by due care and thought of self, by reasonable enjoyment of the bright and pleasant things which life brings to most, I in some degree or wholly counterpoise such pains and sorrows as life brings to all, and at the same time help to brighten the lives of those around, and those also of generations as yet unborn, how shall I doubt what answer to give to the question. Is life worth living? Not sad is the answer, but bright and cheering.
There is still not a little to be said respecting the due care of personal well-being. ”

“ All around us are human souls that may be influenced. The nurse, who ministers to you in sickness, may be hurt or helped by you; the children, who look into your face and read it daily, who listen to your speech, and remember what you say, will grow better or worse, according to the spirit of your life, as it flows into them; the neglected son of a neighbor may find in you the wise counsellor who holds him back from vice. ”

“ And something like a sunbeam of healing flashed into my heart with the next words.
"Fear thou not: for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness." ”

“ We thank thee that while we are sure of thy protecting care, thy causal providence, which foresees all things, we can bear the sorrows of this world, and do its duties, and endure its manifold and heavy cross. We thank thee that when distress comes upon us, and our mortal schemes vanish into thin air, we know there is something solid which we can lay hold of, and not be frustrated in our hopes. ”

“ In all cases where it appears this attention and placing them in our domestic circle, will contribute to their comfort or their cure, we, as a matter of feeling and of duty, treat them with equal kindness and attention, always giving considerations of comfort and of cure, the first place. ”

“ Here have I health, a loving family—have had the inestimable advantages of education, and even now, in the imminent approach of danger, am enabled to preserve, in some measure, a composure of feeling, a resolution—which will support me, and those who are dearer to me than life. ”

“ But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments, which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. ”

“ In the world today what calls for more of love, sympathy, learning, sacrifice, and long-suffering than the care of children, the preparation of food, the cleansing and ordering of the home, personal attendance and companionship, the care of bodies and their raiment—what greater, more intimate, more holy Services are there than these? ”

“ I am unable to express the deep sense I feel for cares and attentions, which have not merely saved me from every danger and discomfort, but which have made the journey of my family and friends, a constant instruction and continual pleasure. ”

“ Yet you know (none better) how much one has to feel in the detail of life, when so much is at stake. O, why can we not, with full faith and perfect peace, cast all our care upon Him, who indeed careth for us more than we can care for any being? ”

“ We are in the way both of duty and comfort when our souls wait upon God, when we cheerfully refer ourselves, and the disposal of all our affairs, to his will and wisdom, when we acquiesce in and accommodate ourselves to all the dispensations of his providence, and patiently expect a doubtful event, with an entire satisfaction in his righteousness and goodness, however it be. ”

“ But in view of the bigger things of life, the tremendous struggle going on so near, the agony of the sick and wounded, the suffering of the women and children, my own little qualms get lost in the shuffle, and my one consuming desire is to help in any way I can. ”

“ Care is permitted to come to us by God, and nothing comes from Him but what is good for us.”
“Why do people hide their care?”
“It is our nature to hide excessive care or joy; they are both too sacred to be exposed to our fellow-mortals; they are hidden away with God. ”

“ Oh! surely, if the being of the individual be under his own care, if it be his first care, if duty begin from the point of accountableness to our conscience and, through that, to God and human nature; if without such primary sense of duty, all secondary care of teacher, of friend, or parent, must be baseless and fruitless; if, lastly, the motions of the soul transcend in worth those of the animal functions, nay, give to them their sole value ”

“ Without being impudent enough to attempt to use the sufferer's mind for him, to force our wills upon him, to take his burdens off his shoulders, to fill his place or to assume his responsibilities, we must try to help him in all these respects, largely by the kind of sympathy which stimulates, the kind of affection which encourages, the affection which changes useless brooding, ineffectual worrying, destructive grieving, into their opposites. ”

“ Not alone the health and bodily comfort of those who compose her kingdom, but their life-long usefulness and eternal happiness, are committed to her watchful care, and may be wrecked by one false step, one unguarded act, one ill-tempered word or unjust suspicion. ”

“ They feel such a moment to be the reward of many a previous hour of care and anxiety; it is their happy privilege to mark each improvement in person, mind and heart—the fruit of past labours and prayers—the cheering promise amid the doubts of the future. ”

“ That we take the greatest Care to keep ourselves blameless; that is, that we do no Injury to any one. 3. That we exercise Charity, i.e. to deserve well of all Persons (as much as in us lyes) . 4. That we practise Patience, i.e. to bear patiently Injuries that are offered us, when we can't prevent them, not revenging them, nor requiting Evil for Evil. ”

“ In difficult times our care concerning the events of the day should be swallowed up in a care concerning the duty of the day. 3. When they were showing their love to Christ by their grieving to think of his departure, and the sorrow which filled their hearts upon the foresight of that, he bids them, if they would show their love to him, do it, not by these weak and feminine passions, but by their conscientious care to perform their trust, and by a universal obedience to his commands ”

“ CONCLUDING PRAYER
O FAITHFUL servants of God and powerful protectors of man, Holy Helpers! Since Our Lord appointed you the heavenly advocates for our needs on earth, I confidently turn to you for help in my distress. Countless numbers praise you for aiding them with counsel in doubt, with consolation in anxiety, with health in illness, with safety in danger, with delivery from prison, and with help and assistance in all tribulations. Therefore I, too, have recourse to you, and implore you not to refuse me your aid. ”

“ And with what tender, reverent feeling has he not opened our hearts to compassion and to consideration for the welfare of our fellow-man, and how potent have been his counsellings pointing to the true and abiding sources of pleasure in life! ”

“ Let us take, now, the doctrine that while due care of self comes to each man, and indeed to every creature having life, as essentially first, yet due care of others—though second to due care of self—is as absolutely essential. ”

“ Of what use would all our cares, anxieties, and troubles be to us if they only served to torment us, and made us suffer the pain of having had them?
Our cares are only the cares of an individual, those of God include the whole world. The more we trouble ourselves with our own interests, the less will God interfere. ”

“ Thus, while I have inquired for myself with the most anxious care, into comparatively trivial matters, I have relied wholly on the care and fidelity of others in things of the weightiest importance. I have attributed to others an interest in the highest affairs of humanity, an earnestness and an exactitude which I have by no means discovered in myself. ”

“ And Affections.—​And it is not only the same desires; all people, everywhere, have the same affections and passions which act in the same way under similar provocation: joy and grief, love and resentment, benevolence, sympathy, fear, and much else, are common to all of us. So, too, of conscience, the sense of duty. ”

“ I have come here with sincere and ardent devotion to a cause, and to use my best endeavors to have that cause put under the care of men who are devoted to it with equal sincerity and possess those qualities of mind and heart which will make it safe in their keeping. ”

“ And as such is the care which is spent by us on the support of our bodies, what manner of men ought we to show ourselves on behalf of our children and of the mother that is to rear them? Ought we not most readily to strain every nerve? ”

“ They eat up that vigour of soul which should be spent in divine things; divert us from duty, distract us in duty, and do us most mischief of all afterwards; quenching the sparks of good affections, and bursting the cords of good resolutions; those who are careful and cumbered about many things, commonly neglect the one thing needful. ”