upward; lint the summit is In cloud. Reason pierces the cloud, and crie~, " God is there I" Faith soars into the light which thick darkness veils, and proclaims, "God is love I" But tho agnostic reckons Faith unscientific, Reason going beyond her pro- vince; doubts if there be anything but cloud. So when Moses went up into the thick darkness where God was, the people, who thought the flesh-pots of Egypt much more real than the voice from Sinai, said, "As for this Moses, ... we know not what is become of him," Christianity and agnosticism are so irreconcilably opposed, that sympathy on the part of a Christian towards an agnostic seems difficult. Yet you rnnnot understand any one with whom you have no sympathy; and when you neither sympathize nor understand, you have little chance of doing good. Agnosticism con- tains a kernel of Christian truth, and therefore presents a point of coptrast for Chris- tian sympathy, viz. the profound mystery which surrounds all our thoughts of God, setting strait limits to our knowledge, baffling all attempts of humall reasoll to pass those limits (Job xi. 7; 1 Tim. vi. 16). I. TllE MYSTERY OF 0BEATION. Our senses show us the surface of universe- phenomenon; the harmonious working of the mighty machine; the endless £lo,.,, through birth, growth, decay, of the river of life. But where is the moving power, the fountain, the loom in which this wondrous web is being woven, and the hand which weaves? Science pierces below the surface; shows everywhere unchanging law, faultless adjustment, interchangeable forces, rules of number, measure, weight, mutual attraction and fitness. But we cannot stop short in these. "Evolution" is supposed to explain it all. But what explains evolution? .A.s Mr. Spencer has rightly observed, we should rather call the proces~ of nature "involution," because at each step and stage something new and surprising comes ia. Process is not cause. When, e.g., a number of primary atoms enter illto combination, not at haphazard, but in fixed proportions of number and weight, and a new substance, with wholly new properties, is produced-whence came these properties? Had the atoms continued apart, they would have had no existence to all eternity. Why do the atoms attract and cleave to oue another? Whence their violent movement? Where are those laws of number, weight, proportion, which cannot exist ill the atoms, yet which every atom so abso- lutely obeys? To talk of laws is no explanatioll; it is the very existence of laws we wallt explained. Science can give no reply to these or ten thousand such questions. 'l'he Bible gathers up all lesser mysteries in the one primmval mystery with which its first sentence sets us face to face-not to reason or comprehend, but to worship: "In the beginning, God created." II. 'l'HE MYSTERY OF PROVIDENCE. By "providence" we understand the Creator's wise, merciful, universal, sovereigo control over all his works, especially human life and the welfare of his children. We often compare nature, or human life, to a web incessantly weaving; but this is a very feeble image. Instead of parallel threads, crossed at right angles by another set of parallel threads, we see countless millions of independeat lines of natural force and or human will crossing at every conceivable angle every moment with incalculable speed. Yet the pattern of God's purpose is beiag woven. "No man liveth to himself." Sometimes in concert, often in discord, mostly in ignorance or disregard, we are influenciag one another, depending on one another. Yet "we know that nil things work together for good to them that love God." Daily experience confirms the Bible teaching, that in what is to our eyes this inconceivable tangle of will, chance, and law, every thread lies under Gud's eye, obeys his will. lllust.: History of Joseph (cf. Gen. xv. 13; xiii. 36; xiv. 7, 8). :Miracles 11re not more wonderful than providence (special reference here to the passage of the Red Sea). No sharp line between them in Scripture. No reason to think" natural laws" broken in one case or other, any more than mall breaks natural laws when he drives his trains through mountains, makes iron float on the ocean, compels wind, water, steam, lightning, to work his engines (see Ps. cxix. 89; Dan. iv. 35). III. TllE MYSTERY OF Goo's DEALINGS WITH OUR RAOE AND WITH INDIVIDUALS. Scripture shows one line of Divine purpose from beginning to end of world. History shows all the most energetic progressive races brought into contact with the Bible and the Church of God. But why the slow progress of the gospel; the huge stagnatin"' masses of heathendom ; the late birth of science; the obstinate prevalence of wa~ tyranny, slavery? If we say (rightly) sin is at the bottom of all, this only runs up f84LM8-JI, I IH THE BOOK OF PSALMS. [PS. LXXVD, 1-20.
all other mysteries into the deepest and darkest. Compared with all this, what we call "mysteries" in our da.ily life seem simple, especially with the key of promise (Heb. xii. 5-10). Yet how dark they often are I n-. Above, beneath, around, behind, all these mysteries is THAT OF wmcn wE SCAR_CELY DARE SP~A:S:-TH~ MYSTERY OF Gon HIMSELr-his eternity, omnipotence, ornmpre~ence, omms~1ence, nghteousness, love (Ps. cxxx1x. 6). This is a lesson, not of unbelief, but of faith. A God whom we could comprehend, in whom we found no unfathomable depth of mystery, would be no more the God of the Dible than of nature. Yet" we know what we worship" (John iv, 22). The cloud covers the mount but the path is open. "We draw near" (Exod. xx. 21; Isa. xlv. 16 i Heh. x. 10,' 22). See bow from this awful view of Divine mystery the psalmist passes-like a chancre in music from a stormy minor to a cheerful major, and restful close: "Thou lcdd~st," etc. We know all we need to know. Not a question concernina God, on which our welfare practicaJ,ly turns, but the Bible has a clear, full answer (John i. 18; xvii. 3; 1 John iv. 16),