Present duty neglected by speculating on what may never take place.

I think seriously of returning to my duty. But there are some things about it which I do not understand."

"What things?" says the teacher.

66

Why," says the boy, "I do not see what I should do if you and my father were to command me to do opposite things. I do not clearly understand whom I ought to obey."

"Do you not know," replies the teacher," that you now disobey me in cases where your father and myself both wish you to obey? Come and do your duty in these. You have nothing to do with such a question as you mention. Come and do your duty."

"But," says the boy, "there is another great difficulty, which I never could understand. Suppose my father or you should command me to do something wrong; then I should be bound to obey my father, and also bound not to do what is wrong. Now I cannot understand what I ought to do in such a case.'

Thus he goes on. Instead of returning immediately to the right path, becoming a dutiful son and a docile pupil at once, in the thousand plain cases which are every day occurring, he looks every way in search of difficulties with which he hopes to perplex his teacher and excuse his neglect of duty.

Speculating inquirer, are you not doing the same? when it is most plainly your duty to begin to love God and serve him at once in the thousand plain instances which occur daily, instead of doing it with all your heart, trusting in God that he will do right,-do you not search through the whole administration of his government for fancied difficulties-difficulties to your feeble powersfeeble originally, but rendered feebler still by your continuance in sin? With these difficulties you embarrass yourself, and strive to perplex your minister, or your Sabbath school teacher, or your parent, and thus find a momentary respite from the reproaches of a wounde!

2. Perplexities of Christians.

from your

Way to avoid them.

own conscience,

spirit by carrying the war away which is the proper field, into your pastor's or your parent's intellect. While the argument is going on here, your sense of guilt subsides, conscience is seared, and you fall back to coldness and hardness of heart. Now why will you thus waste your time and your moral strength on questions in regard to which you have no responsibility, instead of walking in the plain path of duty, which lies open before you?

repose

2. Useless perplexities of a Christian. In bringing up to view so plainly the insuperable difficulties connected with religious truth, I have been hoping to divert the minds of experienced Christians from being perplexed and embarrassed by them. Once make up your mind, fully and cordially, that there are depths which the sounding line of your intellect will not reach, and you will in the conviction that you do not and cannot now know, with a peace of mind which you cannot in any other way secure. How many persons perplex themselves again and again, and go on perplexing themselves all through life in fruitless endeavors to understand thoroughly the precise and exact relation which Jesus Christ bears to the Father. The Bible gives us, clearly, and in simple and definite language, all about the Savior which it is of practical importance for us to know. The Word was God, and the Word became flesh, or man. Now just be willing to stop here. "But no," says some one who loves his Savior, and wishes to understand his character, "I want to have clear ideas on this subject; I want to know precisely what relation he sustained to the Father before he became man. Was he in all respects identical? or was he a different being, or a different person; and what is the difference between a person and a being? When he became man, I want to know precisely how the two natures came together."

"You want to know; but how will you ascertain?

Plausible reasoning sometimes unsafe.

Scholars in Geometry.

Does the Bible tell you? It tells you that your Savior was God, and that he became man. If you rest upon the Bible, you must stop here. Will you trust to your own speculations? Will you build up inferences upon what the Bible states; and think, if you are cautious in your reasoning, you can be safe in your conclusions? You cannot be safe in your conclusions. No mind can be trusted a moment to draw conclusions from well established premises on a subject which it does not fully grasp.

If you doubt this, just make the following experiment. Undertake to teach the elements of geometry to a class of intelligent young people; and as they go on from truth to truth, lead them into conversation, induce them to apply the active energies of their minds to the subject, in reasoning themselves from the truths which their textbook explains, and you will soon be convinced how far the human mind can be trusted in its inferences on a subject which is beyond its grasp. Your pupils will bring you apparent contradictions, arising, as they think they can show, from the truths established; and will demonstrate, most satisfactorily to themselves, the most absurd propositions. In one case, an intelligent scholar in a class in college attempted to demonstrate the absurdity of the famous forty-seventh. He drew his diagram, and wrote out his demonstration, and showed it to his class; and it was long before any of them could detect the fallacy. The mathematical reader will understand this, and all may understand, that, in this case, the pupil made out a chain of reasoning perfectly satisfactory to his own mind, which however led to absurdity and falsehood.

You say, perhaps, "Well, this was because he had just begun the study; he knew scarcely any thing about it. Such mistakes would only be made by the merest beginners."

That is exactly what I wish you to say; and to admit

Drawing inferences.

Story of the knights and the statue.

the same thing in regard to ourselves, as students of religious truth. We are mere beginners; we know almost nothing of such subjects as God, eternity, and the constitution of mind. The moment therefore we leave the plain propositions of the Bible, which are all that are necessary for us to understand, and go to drawing inferences, we involve ourselves in absurdity and falsehood, no matter how directly and inevitably our inferences seem to follow. Whenever I hear a man attempting to prove, from the nature of the case, that the Word could not have been God, and afterward have become flesh, or that God cannot reign in the heart, as the Bible says he does, and yet leave man free and accountable, I always think of the college sophomore endeavoring by his own blundering reasoning to upset the proposition of Pythagoras.

These subjects, which are too difficult in their very nature for our powers, are the source of very many of the unhappy controversies which agitate the church. The mind is not capable of grasping fully the whole truth. Each side seizes a part, and, building its own inferences upon these partial premises, they soon find that their own opinions come into collision with those of their neighbors.

Moralists tell the following story, which very happily illustrates this species of controversy: In the days o knight errantry, when individual adventurers rode about the world, seeking employment in their profession, which was that of the sword, two strong and warlike knights, coming from opposite directions, met each other at a place where a statue was erected. On the arm of the statue was a shield, one side of which was of iron, the other of brass, and as our two heroes reined up their steeds, the statue was upon the side of the road, between them, in such a manner that the shield presented its surface of brass to the one, and of iron to the other. They imme

The shield of brass and iron.

One kind of controversy

diately fell into conversation in regard to the structure before them, when one, incidentally alluding to the iron shield, the other corrected him, by remarking that it was of brass. The knight upon the iron side of course did not receive the correction: he maintained that he was right; and, after carrying on the controversy for a short time by harsh language, they gradually grew angry, and soon drew their swords. A long and furious combat ensued; and when at last both were exhausted, unhorsed, and lying wounded upon the ground, they found that the whole cause of their trouble was, that they could not see both sides of a shield at a time.

Now religious truth is sometimes such a shield, with various aspects, and the human mind cannot clearly see all at a time. Two Christian knights, clad in strong armor, come up to some such subject as moral agency, and view it from opposite stations. One looks at the power which man has over his heart, and, laying his foundation there, he builds up his theory upon that alone. Another looks upon the divine power in the human heart, and, laying his own separate foundation, builds up his theory. The human mind is incapable, in fact, of grasping the subject-of understanding how man can be free and accountable, and yet be so much under the control of God as the Bible represents. Our Christian soldiers, however, do not consider this. Each takes his own view, and carries it out so far as to interfere with that of the other. They converse about it—they talk more and more warmly-then a long controversy ensues- -if they have influence over others, their dispute agitates the church, and divides brethren from brethren. And why? Why, just because our Creator has so formed us that we cannot, from one point of view, see both sides of the shield at the same time. The combatants, after a long battle, are both unhorsed and wounded;