a universal law, that we shall know if we
follow on to know: that the trial of our faith worketh patience, and
patience experience, and we have so dim and vague an apprehension of
Divine realities, chiefly because we have made but little trial, and
have not tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious.

In this respect, as in so many more, religion is analogous with nature.
The squalor of the savage could be civilised, and the distorted and
absurd conceptions of mediaeval science could be corrected, only by
experiment, persistently and wisely carried out.

And it is so in religion: its true evidence is unknown to these who
never bore its yoke; it is open to just such raillery and rejection as
they who will not love can pour upon domestic affection and the sacred
ties of family life; but, like these, it vindicates itself, in the rest
of their souls, to those who will take the yoke and learn. And its best
wisdom is not of the cunning brain but of the open heart, that wisdom
from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be
entreated.

And thus, while God leads Israel, they shall know that He is Jehovah,
and true to His highest revelations of Himself.

All this they heard, and also, to define their hope and brighten it, the
promise of Palestine was repeated; but they hearkened not unto Moses for
anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage. Thus the body often holds the
spirit down, and kindly allowance is made by Him Who knoweth our frame
and remembereth that we are dust, and Who, in the hour of His own agony,
found the excuse for His unsympathising followers that the spirit was
willing although the flesh was weak. So when Elijah made request for
himself that he might die, in the utter reaction which followed his
triumph on Carmel and his wild race to Jezreel, the good Physician did
not dazzle him with new splendours of revelation until after he had
slept, and eaten miraculous food, and a second time slept and eaten.

But if the anguish of the body excuses much weakness of the spirit, it
follows, on the other hand, that men are responsible to God for that
heavy weight which is laid upon the spirit by pampered and luxurious
bodies, incapable of self-sacrifice, rebellious against the lightest of
His demands. It is suggestive, that Moses, when sent again to Pharaoh,
objected, as at first: "Behold, the children of Israel have not
hearkened unto me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of
uncircumcised li