refuge by faith within His sacred heart, saying--If it be good for me, He
will give what I ask: and if He gives it not, it is because that too is
good for me, and for others beside me. In all the chances and changes of
this mortal life we can say to Him, as He said in that supreme hour--"If
it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not my will, but
thine, be done," sure that He will present that prayer to His Father, and
to our Father, and to His God and to our God; and that whatsoever be the
answer vouchsafed by Him whose ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts
as our thoughts, the prayer will not have gone up to Christ in vain.

And in such a case as this of missions to the heathen--If we believe that
Christ died for these poor heathen; if we believe that Christ loves these
poor heathen infinitely more than we, or than the most devoted missionary
who ever lived or died for them: shall we say--Then we may leave them in
Christ's hands to follow their own nature. If He is satisfied with their
degradation, so may we be? Shall we not rather say--Their misery and
degradation must pain His sacred heart, far more than our sinful hearts;
and if He does not come down again on earth to help them Himself, it must
be because He means to help them through us, His disciples? Let us ask
Him to teach us and others how to help them; to enable us and others to
help them. Let us pray to Him the one prayer which, unless prayer be a
dream, is certain to be answered, because it is certainly according to
God's will; the prayer to be taught and helped to do our duty by our
fellow-men. And for the rest: let us pray in the words of that most
noble of all collects, to pray which is to take refuge from our own
ignorance in the boundless wisdom of God's love--"Thou who knowest our
necessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion
on our infirmities, and those things which for our unworthiness we dare
not, and for our blindness we cannot ask, condescend to give us, for the
worthiness of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."