One morning, having stepped into the office of a surgical friend, I beheld him performing a short but painful surgical operation upon a little child of three or four years old. The cries of the little sufferer were heart-rending to us all, but especially to the father, who held her on his knees. He was a rough farmer, but the tears were running down his cheeks and falling upon the head of his child. In thinking over this incident, the words of the 103d Psalm have often come up in my mind: “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” Here was a father who felt that it was essential to his daughter’s welfare that she should thus suffer at the hand of a surgeon; yet he shed tears of pity on beholding her suffering. So God sees that it is essential to our good to afflict us; but while we writhe under these afflictions, he pities us as a father pities his children.