midnight
But to the Christian that really believes in the agency of God in the smallest events of life , that confides in his love , and makes his sympathy his refuge , the thousand minute cares and perplexities of life become each one a fine affiliating bond between the soul and its God . God is known , not by abstract definition , and by high-raised conceptions of the soul 's aspiring hours , but known as a man knoweth his friend ; he is known by the hourly wants he supplies ; known by every care with which he momentarily sympathizes , every apprehension which he relieves , every temptation which he enables us to surmount . We learn to know God as the infant child learns to know its mother and its father , by all the helplessness and all the dependence which are incident to this commencement of our moral existence ; and as we go on thus year by year , and find in every changing situation , in every reverse , in every trouble , from the lightest sorrow to those which wring our soul from its depths , that he is equally present , and that his gracious aid is equally adequate , our faith seems gradually almost to change to sight ; and God 's existence , his love and care , seem to us more real than any other source of reliance , and multiplied cares and trials are only new avenues of acquaintance between us and heaven . Suppose , in some bright vision unfolding to our view , in tranquil evening or solemn midnight , the glorified form of some departed friend should appear to us with the announcement , `` This year is to be to you one of especial probation and discipline , with reference to perfecting you for a heavenly state . Weigh well and consider every incident of your daily life , for not one shall fall out by accident , but each one is to be a finished and indispensable link in a bright chain that is to draw you upward to the skies ! '' With what new eyes should we now look on our daily lot ! and if we found in it not a single change , -- the same old cares , the same perplexities , the same uninteresting drudgeries still , -- with what new meaning would every incident be invested !