the waters in the hollow of His hand?' 'Who hath gathered the wind in
His fists?' In that curved palm where all the seas lie as a very
little thing, we are held; the grasp that keeps back the tempests from
their wild rush, keeps us, too, from being smitten by their blast. As
a father may lay his own large muscular hand on his child's tiny
fingers to help him, or as 'Elisha put his hands on the king's hands,'
that the contact might strengthen him to shoot the 'arrow of the
Lord's deliverance,' so the hand of our God is upon us to impart power
as well as protection; and our 'bow abides in strength,' when 'the
arms of our hands are made strong by the hands of the mighty God of
Jacob.' That was Ezra's faith, and that should be ours.

Note Ezra's sensitive shrinking from anything like inconsistency
between his creed and his practice. It was easy to talk about God's
protection when he was safe behind the walls of Babylon; but now the
pinch had come. There was a real danger before him and his unwarlike
followers. No doubt, too, there were plenty of people who would have
been delighted to catch him tripping; and he felt that his cheeks
would have tingled with shame if they had been able to say, 'Ah! that
is what all his fine professions come to, is it? He wants a convoy,
does he? We thought as much. It is always so with these people who
talk in that style. They are just like the rest of us when the pinch
comes.' So, with a high and keen sense of what was required by his
avowed principles, he will have no guards for the road. _There_
was a man whose religion was at any rate not a fair-weather religion.
It did not go off in fine speeches about trusting to the protection of
God, spoken from behind the skirts of the king, or from the middle of
a phalanx of his soldiers. He clearly meant what he said, and believed
every word of it as a prose fact, which was solid enough to build
conduct on.