God watches over us constantly, guiding and protecting us like a father watching his child.
A little boy was running about in an apartment, amusing himself, as children are accustomed to do. His money was potsherds, his house bits of wood, his horse a stick, and his child a doll. In the same apartment sat his father, at a table, occupied with important matters of business, which he noted and arranged for the future benefit of his young companion. The child frequently ran to him, asked many foolish questions, and begged one thing after another as necessary for his diversion. The father answered briefly, did not intermit his work, but, all the time, kept a watchful eye over the child, to save him from any serious fall or injury. Gotthold was a spectator of the scene, and thought with himself: "How beautiful an adumbration of the fatherly care of God!" We too, who are old children, course about in the world, and often play at games which are much more foolish than those of our little ones: we collect and scatter, build and demolish, plant and pluck up, ride and drive, eat and drink, sing and play, and fancy that we are performing great exploits, well worthy of God's special attention. Meanwhile, however, the Omniscient is sitting by, and writing our days in his book. He orders and executes all that is to befall us, overruling it for our best interests in time and eternity; and yet his eye never ceases to watch over us and the childish sports in which we are engaged, that we may meet with no deadly mischief."
