The Kings Cup-Bearer | Page 9

us in the face. At once
we may lift up the heart and cry--
Lord, save me.
There is no need to kneel down, no need to speak aloud, no need to
move from our place. In the office, the workshop, the schoolroom, the
place of business, the railway carriage, the street, wherever we may be
and in whatever company, the short silent prayer may be sent up to the
God of heaven.
Thank God, no such prayer is ever unanswered!
CHAPTER III.
The Good Hand.
The mighty universe, the great empire of the King of kings, who shall
give us even a faint idea of its size?
It has been calculated that about 100,000,000 stars can be seen from
our world by means of a telescope. Yet who can grasp such a number

as that? Which of us can picture in his mind 100,000,000 objects? Let
us suppose that instead of 100,000,000 stars we have the same number
of oranges; let us arrange our oranges in imagination on a long string,
which shall pass through the centre of each of them. How long will our
string have to be if it is to hold the 100,000,000 oranges? It will have to
be no less than 6,000 miles long, and our 100,000,000 oranges will
stretch in a straight line from England to China.
One hundred million stars, and of all these God is King. But these are
but as a speck compared with His vast universe. Each telescope that is
invented, which enables us to see a little further into space, discovers
more and more worlds unseen before. Who can even guess how many
still lie beyond, unseen, unnoticed, unheard of? The regions of space
are endless, as God their Maker is endless.
And all these countless worlds are under the eye of the King of kings.
He rules all, watches all, guides all. Can I, then, believe that He will
have time to take notice of my tiny affairs? Can He care if I am sick,
worried, or poor, or depressed? Surely I must be ready to say with the
Psalmist--
'When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and
the stars which Thou hast ordained, what is man, that Thou art mindful
of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?'
Yet that quaint old saying of John Flavel the Puritan is right, 'The man
who watches for Providence will never want a Providence to watch.' In
other words, he who trusts his concerns to a higher power, he who puts
his cause in the Lord's hands, will never be disappointed. The God who
rules the universe will not forget to attend to him, but will watch him,
and guide him, and help him, as tenderly as if he was the only being in
that universe.
St. Augustine used to say, 'Lord, when I look upon mine own life, it
seems Thou hast led me so carefully and tenderly, Thou canst have
attended to none else; but when I see how wonderfully Thou hast led
the world and art leading it, I am amazed that Thou hast had time to
attend to such as I.'

How much more must we wonder at God's loving care, when we look
beyond this tiny world to the countless millions of worlds in the
universe!
Nehemiah was watching for Providence. He had taken his case to God,
he had trusted all to Him, and Nehemiah did not want a Providence to
watch; the God in whom he had put his confidence did not disappoint
him.
'Let me go that I may rebuild Jerusalem,' says the cup-bearer; and the
great Persian king does not refuse his request, but (prompted, it may be,
by the queen who was sitting by him) he asks: 'For how long shall thy
journey be? and when wilt thou return?'
'And I set him a time.' How long a time we are not told. Nehemiah did
not return to Persia for twelve years; but it is probable that he asked for
a shorter leave of absence, and that this was extended later on, in order
to enable him to finish his work.
Cheered and encouraged by the king's manner, feeling sure that God is
with him and is prospering him, Nehemiah asks another favour of the
king. The Persian empire at that time was of such vast extent, that it
reached from the river Indus to the Mediterranean, and the Euphrates
was looked upon as naturally dividing it into two parts, east and west.
Nehemiah asks, ch. ii. 7, for letters to the governors of the western
division of the empire, that they may be instructed to help him and
forward him on his way.
He asks, ver. 8, for something more. There is a