here is a large variable element in the problem of our
activities; and on this variable element, which we have no means of
calculating, depends all that is most precious and vital in our results.
Husbandry here is the great witness for, and key to, higher things.
Certain bases are fixed and unalterable; else our work would be a pure
lottery. Much on which its fruits depend is variable; else our work
would be purely mechanical. God gives us a large measure of assurance,
that we may work bravely and put our hearts into our labour, as those
who have a right to hope that they will carry the sheaves of their
harvest home; but He crosses our toil with a zone of uncertainties, that
we may be faithful workmen, trusting and praying as well as working, and
may be kept in holy and blessed dependence on Him who can lift us above
all servile care for immediate results. Consider--

1. The awful force and inevitable certainty of the processes of Nature,
the unfailing "order of Nature" which furnishes forth the field of our
toils. That order God guarantees. The assurance is thus expressed:
"_While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat,
and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease_" (Gen. viii.
22). That word of promise which has nursed the trembling hope of man
into strong certainty--for he is as sure that the sun will rise on the
morrow as he is of his own existence--lies at the foundation of all his
steady activity as a workman in this lower world. The joyful outgoings
of the morning and evening, and the succession of the seasons, are given
to him as the constant elements in his husbandry. These are assured to
him by the voice that called them into being and the hand which sustains
their motions. God tells him that he may count absolutely on this order.
And what guarantee, when we come to think of it, have we of that order,
but such as a firm belief in an intelligent Ruler of the universe, who
sympathises with the hopes and blesses the toils of His children,
affords? Then further,--

2. There is the absolutely certain sequence of physical causes and
effects, or antecedents and consequents, which we call laws of nature,
which vary not one hair's breadth from their ordained order in obedience
to the mandates of our will, but which, by observing and mastering the
principle of that order, we can use for the accomplishment of our ends.
These are our tools to work with. A thousand subtle laws are concerne