KEPT BY THE POWER OF GOD.
By H. E. Sawyer-Hopkins
NOT long since a cyclone passed through the vicinity of a small railway station near Battle Creek, Mich. I was visiting a relative at this place; and as we were seated at the dinner-table, I noticed dark clouds rising in the west. They seemed to linger a long time, but anon came a light shower, the forerunner of the storm. When a child attending a public school, I learned to sing several pieces, one of which I have never forgotten; and since that time whenever a thunder-shower comes up, these lines come to mind:— “It thunders! but I tremble not;
My trust is firm in God;
His arm of strength I’ve ever sought
Through all the way I’ve trod;
He saves in danger’s fearful hour
The children of His love;
His watchful eye and boundless power
No shock of time can move.
“The hand that gives the morning light,
And paints the blushing rose,
Controls the storm with sovereign might,
Or bids it e’en repose;
’Tis He that guides the sparrow’s wings,
And keeps the insect’s ways,
And watches every herb that springs,
And numbers all our days.
“I therefore fear no tempest’s rage,
No lightning’s dazzling fire;
His vows who rules from age to age,
My heart with trust inspire;
While I am His and He is mine,
I’m ever safe from ill;
O, let my heart and voice combine
His courts with praise to fill.” I thought I would go up-stairs, and close the windows. Passing a room, I heard the crashing of window-panes and the wind rising at a fearful rate. As I returned down-stairs, it seemed for a moment as if our time had come, and the big house would surely go. The roaring was terrific, sounding like great water-wheels in motion under the house; I can not describe it. We called upon the Lord to save us and spare the building; and in an instant it passed over. On going out-doors, I saw that the chimneys were all blown off, the blinds torn down, the tops of the trees on the east side and the wind-mill on the west twisted off, and over across the road in front of us, in an eleven-acre orchard about a dozen large apple-trees were uprooted or had large branches broken down. One very large oak-tree was torn up by the roots, and lay across the road; a small building back of the wood-shed was lifted over a wire fence eight feet high, and laid down on its side; thus the work of destruction was seen on every side of us. Across a forty-acre lot a farmhouse had turned over twice, then taken fire from the stove, and it was all in a blaze. Here a lady was badly injured, and died a few days later. Beyond us on the east side another house was blown down, then torn to pieces and several were injured. The fact that we had been kept in safety amid all this wreck of the tempest, impressed me with the thought, “What a kind and loving heavenly Father we have, who cares for those who trust in Him through storm and wild tempests.” It brings to mind now as I write, these lines found in the Review of May 21: “The Spirit of God is being withdrawn from the earth, and calamity is following calamity by land and by sea. Tempests and earthquakes, fires and floods, are upon every hand. Only in God can security be found.” May the Lord teach us how we can best honor Him, by using every power in His service, that we may find shelter from coming storms. H. E. SAWYER-HOPKINS.