“God is, and all is well,” says the poet, and the child of God can ever say it, however foreboding appearances may be. Truly, if we look to the world alone, the picture is dark and forbidding. War and famine and pestilence devastate the earth; strife and hatred exist between the rich and the poor; crime and calamity occur with startlingly increasing frequency; pleasure-lovers are mad with mirth and recklessness. Yet we can say with Whittier— “The clouds, which rise with thunder, slake
Our thirsty souls with rain;
The blow most dreaded falls to break
From off our limbs a chain;
And wrongs, from man to man but make
The love of God more plain;
As through the shadowy lens of even,
The eye looks farther into heaven
On gleams of stars and depths of blue
The glowing sunshine never knew.” Therefore the Christian need not fear. Rather, he may rejoice that “to them that love God, God worketh all things with them for good.” Rom. 8: 28, R.V., margin. God has not abdicated; He still reigns, tho He permits evil to develop, that men may see it to be evil. Out of it all He will bring good. “God is, and all is well” to the trusting heart.