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TIE YOUR CAMEL

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 23, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 17.

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TIE YOUR CAMEL.

DARKNESS was coming down upon the desert. There were no trees to cast lengthening shadows, no hilltops to hold the lingering rays of sunlight, but suddenly, all over the wide extent of level sand, darkness fell like a black robe.
Mahomet and his attendants halted on their journey, and a tent was pitched.
“Allah’s care is over his children,” said one of the band. “I will even loose my camel, and trust in Allah that I shall find him again in the morning at sunrise.”
“Friend,” said the prophet, with grave, uplifted finger, “tie thy camel and then trust in Allah.”
There is one point of our daily living at which we see men and women continually loosing their camels, with loud protests of trust in Allah, and showing presently pious resignation at their loss—I mean the care of their health. Of course this earthly house of our tabernacle must decay, and we must bear its infirmities cheerily and patiently; but there is neither sense nor piety in committing our lives to God and then breaking all the laws of hygiene.
“This is a strange dispensation of providence,” I said mournfully to my neighbor, as we attended together the third funeral which we had followed from Colonel B.’s house within two years.
“Providence, indeed!” answered my neighbor, with a gruff disrespect which I hope was intended for me, not for providence. “Humph! the colonel keeps rotting potatoes in his cellar!”
“I am asking God to give me dying grace, that I may be willing to go,” said a girl in the last stages of consumption.
“Ah,” said her doctor in a confidential whisper, “if she had only asked a year ago for common sense to keep from putting off her flannel shirt in midwinter to go to a party!”
Friends, eat plain, wholesome food, wear sensible clothes, ventilate your houses, be temperate, be prudent; in short, tie your camel, and then trust in God, and take cheerfully the dispensations of his providence.—Christian Work.