^ If I had to single out any particular verses in the Bible which I am conscious of having influenced me most it would be
PROVERBS III. 5, 6 213
those which were taught me when a boy and which I long after- wards saw on the wall in General Gordon's room in Southampton : " Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." ^
^ When the prophet Jeremiah expressed himself thus, " 0 Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself : it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps," he spoke words which we must all feel to be true, each one of his own self. Now, there is an uncertainty, a want of fixed purpose, a hesitation, a going backwards and forwards, an openness to any crafty temptation, an unsettled, infirm condition of mind, a wrong choice of objects, when a man " leans upon his own understanding," and is " wise in his own eyes." His steps are uncertain, his ways crooked, his principles shifting with the world in which, and for which, he lives : his whole course of action is measured out to him by the opinions of others as unsettled as himself : he is like a wave of the sea, tossed to and fro, at the mercy of every breath of ridicule and temptation that passes over him.^
2. Yet this prohibition must have its limits. To live in utter disregard of our understanding, to allow our mental powers to be atrophied through want of exercise, would lead to the most disastrous consequences. Such a life would be the life of an idiot or a madman — dreary, mean, and purposeless. Every step by which we impair our understanding is a step in the direction of idiocy and madness ; every chance of cultivating our intellect we let slip is a lost opportunity of perfecting our manhood. True, human nature can no longer boast of the exquisite harmony, beauty, and perfection which belonged to it in its primeval state ; still, it is glorious in its fall, it is grand in its ruin; there yet linger about its shattered powers traces of the Divine image which sin has so miserably effaced. Our supreme desire, then, should be salvation — the salvation of the body, of the soul, of the entire man — the restoration of our nature to its original wonder- ful greatness. That man is engaged in the noblest occupation who, being awakened to a sense of his own dignity through the regenerating influence of God's Spirit, eagerly devotes himself to the pursuit of truth and the cultivation of his understanding. Ignorance can never be bliss; much less can ignorance be the
1 W. T. stead, in Books TVhich Have Influenced Me, 41. ^^f. T. Vernon.
214 TRUST IN THE LORD
mother of godliness. It is knowledge of the truth that brings freedom, and a cultivated understanding is a Godlike possession.
^ As the late Dean Church, himself a Dante student, says of Hooker, we may say of Dante, that he found, as the guide of human conduct, " a rule derived not from one alone, but from all the sources of light and truth with which man finds himself en- f compassed." And again : " His whole theory rests on the principle that the paramount and supreme guide, both of the world and of human action, is reason." "The concurrence and co-operation, each in its due place, of all possible means of knowledge for man's direction." " Conceiving of law as reason under another name, he conceived of God Himself as working under a law, which is His supreme reason, and appointing to all His works the law by which they are to work out their possible perfection. Law is that which binds the whole creation, in all its ranks and subordinations, to the perfect goodness and reason of God. Every law of God is a law of reason, and every law of reason is a law of God." ^
II.
A Precept.
1. " Trust in the Lord with all thine heart." This is a remark- able anticipation of New Testament teaching : " We walk by faith, not by sight." "Without faith it is impossible to please God." The trust we should repose in God admits of no limit or modifica- tion. This reminds us of the great commandment in the law, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." Thus, whatever we do in reference to God, whether we love Him, trust Him, or serve Him, it must be done with a heartiness, a reality, an earnestness which cannot for a moment be doubted.
It takes a long time to learn to trust in the Lord, and to acknowledge Him in all our ways. Those who try most to do so, who wish most to leave themselves, and all that belongs to them, to His manifest ordering — who have most reason to hope that they have o'wew up trusting to their own understanding and wisdom in what concerns this life here — are reminded to the last how im- perfectly they have learnt the lesson ; how often, without knowing ' H. B. Garrod, Dante, Ooethis Faust, and other Lectures, 75.