d. As in the wisdom of God divine things do not yield up
their treasures in intellectual investigation but in revelation, the
thick darkness gathers. Even that which had been once known by faith
seems strange and unreal from this new view point. It is a critical time
for a soul when it is learning that in one realm reason does not go
before, but faith. Any harshness or lack of sympathy on the part of
another or evident disappointment in the life is very serious at this
point. The will asserts itself under such measures and from the pliant
attitude, "I cannot believe what I cannot explain," it takes the defiant
attitude, "I will not believe what I cannot explain."

The marvelous dealing of our Lord with Thomas is a picture of His
gracious dealing with every doubting heart, and ought to be the
perpetual model for every one who attempts to give help at this time.
When the Master stood before that disciple who said he would not believe
unless he had the indubitable proof of a physical testing, He spoke no
words of censure, no words of His pain that Thomas had been so long time
with Him and yet did not know Him in faith. "Jesus said, 'Peace be unto
you. Reach hither thy finger, and see My hands, and reach thither thy
hand and put it into My side and be not faithless but believing,' and
Thomas answered and said unto Him, 'My Lord and my God!'"

With like patience and infinite tenderness, the Spirit deals with the
troubled heart today. He makes the past days with God live again in
memory, if the life has known Him, and the soul can not deny in its
reason the reality of what it has lived through in its experience. He
uses every Christian life that can bear the search light as an
irrefutable argument of the verity of the unseen. He brings the peace of
God that passeth understanding, yet fills and thrills the soul as every
service for Him is rendered even in the darkness. He calls through hard
experience where reason can bring no comfort and the will is palsied,
through the abiding unrest and longing of a heart that is feeling after
God in its own way, instead of His, and through the drawing of childhood
habits of love and trust. When at last, spent out with struggle and
longing, the soul is willing to come back to the Heavenly Father as the
little child who used to be, asking only to walk hand in His, in dark or
light, a new consciousness dawns, clear, sure and absolute that, "Thus
saith the Lord," is more than reason, and the t