God, trust therein he surely will.

The old Jews preferred to trust in idols, rather than God; the
Christians of the Middle Age, to their shame, trusted in magic and
astrology, rather than God; and after that, some 200 years ago, when
men had grown too wise to trust in such superstitions, they certainly
did not grow wise enough, most of them, to trust in the living God.
They relied, the rulers of the nations especially, in their own wit
and cunning, and tried to govern the world and keep it straight, by
falsehood and intrigue, envy and jealousy, plotting and party spirit,
and the wisdom which cometh not from above, but is earthly, sensual,
devilish,--that wisdom against which we pray, whenever we sing 'God
save the Queen,' -


'Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix,
GOD save the Queen.'


And since that false wisdom has failed, and the wisdom of this world,
and the rulers of this world, came to nought in the terrible crisis
of the French Revolution, eighty years ago, men have been taking up a
new idolatry. For as science has spread, they have been trusting in
science rather than in the living God, and giving up the old faith
that God's judgments are in all the earth, and that he rewards
righteousness and punishes iniquity; till too many seem to believe
that the world somehow made itself, and that there is no living God
ordering and guiding it; but that a man must help himself as he best