In His Time

“Chris­tian­soften have occa­sion to remark that God’s ways are not as man’s ways, nor Histhoughts as man’s thoughts.  Likewise,His mea­sure of time oft far varies from our own esti­ma­tions. This holds true ina vast vari­ety of respects—but it holds espe­cially true in con­nec­tion with ther­e­moval of the right­eous from this scene of things by the hand of death.  If the affairs of the church or the world­were entrusted to the man­age­ment of man, he would pro­tract the life of the­faith­ful to the extremest limit of human exis­tence, and while the life waspro­longed he would take care that the mind should retain all its vigor, andthat the expe­ri­ence and pub­lic use­ful­ness should ever enlarge.  Widely dif­fer­ent some­times is the­Di­vine method of pro­ce­dure. The ser­vants of God are often unex­pect­edly tak­e­n­away, not when enfee­bled in gifts, or graces, or influ­ence, but when their­pow­ers are most matured, their minds most thor­oughly dis­ci­plined for future­ser­vice, hav­ing suc­cess­fully weath­ered tri­als and temp­ta­tions read­ied by more­fa­vor­able cir­cum­stances for exert­ing pro­pi­tious influ­ences upon men and­na­tions.”  John Gor­don­Lorimer (1808–68), Pas­tor of Free St. David’s, Glasgow