d to find out how few
things he will be able to deal with if he adopts that rule. I feel like
suggesting to him that the next time he goes home to show himself off
to his parents on the farm he address himself to the first mystery
that ever came under his observation, and has not yet been solved,
notwithstanding the wonderful progress made by our agricultural
colleges. Let him find out, if he can, why it is that a black cow can
eat green grass and then give white milk with yellow butter in it? Will
the mystery disturb him? No. He will enjoy the milk and the butter
without worrying about the mystery in them.

And so we might take any vegetable or fruit. The blush upon the peach is
in striking contrast to the serried walls of the seed within; who will
explain the mystery of the apple, the queen of the orchard, or the nut
with its meat, its shell, and its outer covering? Who taught the tomato
vine to fling its flaming many-mansioned fruit before the gaze of the
passer-by, while the potato modestly conceals its priceless gifts within
the bosom of the earth?

I learned years ago that it is the mystery in the miracle that makes it
a stumbling block in the way of many. If you will analyze the miracle
you will find just two questions in it: _Can_ God perform a miracle?
And, would He _want_ to? The first question is easily answered. A God
who can make a world can do anything He wants to with it. We cannot deny
that God _can_ perform a miracle, without denying that God is God. But,
would God _want_ to perform a miracle? That is the question that has
given the trouble, but it has only troubled those, mark you, who are
unwilling to admit that the infinite mind of God may have reasons that
the finite mind of man does not comprehend. If, for any reason, God
desires to do so, can He not, with His infinite strength, temporarily
suspend the operation of any of His laws, as man with his feeble arm
overcomes the law of gravitation when he lifts a stone?

If among my readers any one has been presumptuous enough to attempt to
confine the power and purpose of God by man's puny understanding, let
me persuade him to abandon this absurd position by the use of an
illustration which I once found in a watermelon. I was passing through
Columbus, Ohio, some years ago and stopped to eat in the restaurant
in the depot. My attention was called to a slice of watermelon, and I
ordered it and ate it. I was so pleased with the melon that I asked the
wai