September 5

“Ilast thou entered into the springs of the aea?” Job XXXV iii. 16.

S^JioJOME things in nature must remain a mystery to the foSll’l intelligent and enterprising investigators. Hunian knowledge has bounds beyond which it cannot pass. Universal knowledge is for God alone. If this be so in the things which are seen and temporal, I may rest as. sured that it is even more so in matters spiritual and eternal. Why then have I been torturing my brain with speculations as to destiny and will, fixed fate, and human responsibility? These deep and dark truths I am no more able to comprehend than to find out the depth which coucheth beneath, from which old ocean draws her watery stores. Why am I so curious to know the reason of my Lord’s providences, the motive of His actions, the design of His visitations? Shall I ever be able to clasp the sun in my fist, and hold the universe in my palm? yet these are as a drop of a bucket compared with the Lord my God. Let me not strive to understand the infinite, but spend my strength in love. What I cannot gain by intellect I can possess by aflection; and let that suflSce me. I cannot penetrate the heart of the sea, but I can enjoy the healthful breezes which sweep over its bosom, and I can sail over its blue waves with propitious winds. If I could enter the springs of the sea, the feat would serve no useful purpose either to myself or others; it wc’ild not save the sinking bark, or give back tht drowned mariner to his weeping wife and children; neither would my solving deep mysteries avail me a single whii for the least love to God, and the simplest act of obedienc lo Him, are better than the profoundest knowledge. My T’ord, 1 leave the infinite to Thee, and pray Thee to put far frim ma such a love for the tree of knowledge as might keep ma the tree of life.