Re: For sale in Provence (South of France)
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thought of it. But very often these difficulties are soon removed by
those of another nature; for when God withdraws, they find themselves as
it were blind again, they for the present lose their realizing sense of
those things that looked so plain to them, and, by all they can do, they
cannot recover it, till God renews the influence of His Spirit.
Persons after their conversion often speak of religious things as
seeming new to them; that preaching is a new thing; that it seems to
them they never heard preaching before; that the Bible is a new book:
they find there new chapters, new psalms, new histories, because they
see them in a new light. Here was a remarkable instance of an aged
woman, of about seventy years, who had spent most of her days under Mr.
Stoddard's powerful ministry. Reading in the New Testament concerning
Christ's sufferings for sinners, she seemed to be astonished at what she
read, as what was real and very wonderful, but quite new to her. At
first, before she had time to turn her thoughts, she wondered within
herself, that she had never heard of it before; but then immediately
recollected herself, and thought she had often heard of it, and read it,
but never till now saw it as real. She then cast in her mind how
wonderful this was, that the Son of God should undergo such things for
sinners, and how she had spent her time in ungratefully sinning against
so good a God, and such a Savior; though she was a person, apparently,
of a very blameless and inoffensive life. And she was so overcome by
those considerations that her nature was ready to
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parts, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.
Let the heavens give glory to God; let the earth be joyful; for it hath
pleased the Lord to comfort His people, and He will have mercy upon the poor
who hope in Him.
"Yet Zion dared to say: The Lord hath forsaken me, and hath forgotten me.
Can a woman forget her child, that she should not have compassion on the son
of her womb? but if she forget, yet will not I forget thee, O Sion. I will
bear thee always between my hands, and thy walls are continually before me.
They that shall build thee are come, and thy destroyers shall go forth of
thee. Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold; all these gather
themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt
surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament. Thy waste and thy
desolate places, and the land of thy destruction shall even now be too
narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and the children thou shalt have after
thy barrenness shall say again in thy ears: The place is too strait for me:
give place to me that I may dwell. Then shalt thou say in thy heart: Who
hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a
captive, and removing to and fro? and who brought up these? Behold, I was
left alone; these, where had they been? And the Lord shall say to thee:
Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to
the people; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms