As these sad thoughts filled the
traveller's mind and took away all his courage, his tired eye lighted upon
a tiny tuft of moss, showing green and fair even in the parched soil of the
desert. It was the Lesser Fork-moss which grows in our shady woods, and
beside our ponds and ditches. We should perhaps hardly notice it unless we
were shown its beauty by a microscope, for it is one of the smallest and
humblest of things that grow; but as he looked at it, tears of joy came
to his eyes. Silently springing up in that thirsty land, the tiny moss
spoke to the lonely exile of the care of God for the very smallest of His
creatures, whether the restless brown bird of which the Lord Jesus spoke
when He bade His disciples not to fear, saying, "Ye are of more value than
many sparrows," or the creeping moss which spreads from stone to stone.
In a moment all was changed for the weary traveller. He felt that he was
not alone in that great solitude, for God who had cared for that tuft of
moss, and kept it green and fresh by means of some hidden spring, surely
cared for him, His own child, and would show him the right way out of
that desolate place. Thus the burden and the heat were forgotten in happy
thoughts of the faithfulness of God; and he went on his way with new
courage, and soon found the path which he had lost; but he never forgot
the message which the little moss had brought him. Though the whole plant
was not larger than the tip of his finger, he managed to keep it safely
through all his journeys by land and sea, and had the pleasure of seeing
it flourish under our cold skies just as well as it had done beneath the
burning sun of Africa.
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