"If we want to be happy, we must be occupied with God and His surroundings: if we want to be miserable, we have only to be occupied with self and its surroundings. Look, for a moment, at the first chapter of Luke. What was it that shut up Zacharias in dumb silence? It was unbelief [Luke 1:20]. What was it that filled the heart and opened the lips of Mary and Elizabeth? Faith [Luke 1:45-46]. Here lay the difference. Zacharias might have joined those pious women in their songs of praise were it not that dark unbelief had sealed his lips in melancholy silence. What a picture! What a lesson! Oh that we may learn to trust God more simply! May the doubtful mind be far from us. May it be ours, in the midst of an infidel scene, to be strong in faith, giving glory to God."
