Foolish Thoughts by Henry Ward Beecher

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 22, 1862

Foolish Thoughts

By Henry Ward Beecher

Foolish Thoughts.—We are apt to believe in Providence so long as we have our own way; but if things go awry, then we think, if there is a God, He is in heaven, and not on earth. The cricket in the spring builds his little house in the meadow, and chirps for joy, because all is going so well with him.—But when he hears the sound of the plough a few furrows off, and the thunder of the oxen's tread, then the skies begin to look dark, and his heart fails him. The plough comes crunching along, and turns his dwelling bottom side up, and as he is rolling over and over, without a home, his heart says, "O, the foundations of the world are destroyed, and every thing is going to ruin!" But the husbandman, who walks behind his plough, singing and whistling as he goes, does he think the foundations of the world are breaking up? Why, he does not so much as know there was any house or cricket there. He thinks of the harvest that is to follow the track of the plough; and the cricket, too, if he will but wait, will find a thousand blades of grass where there were but one before. We are all like the crickets. If anything happens to overthrow our plans, we think all is gone to ruin.—Beecher.