y suppose it to mean "something which is incomprehensible." This is all
a mistake.

"[Greek: Musterion]" means simply "a revealed secret." In other words,
"mystery," which we derive from the Greek word quoted, means neither more
nor less than a secret revealed and explained to us. A man of mature years
and finished education knows that which no school-boy can comprehend. To
the elder a secret has been revealed. He is in possession of the mystery.
To the younger it is yet a secret, not incomprehensible, but which can only
be attained in the progress of learning. To the scientific many of the
mysteries of nature are unfolded, but they are a secret to the world at
large. To those Christians in the earlier days of the church, who had
attained its highest instruction, and after the "Ite, missa est" had
dismissed the rest of the congregation, remained to participate in the
"pure offering" (or "clean oblation") prophesied by Malachi[4] to be
thereafter offered in every place to Him whose name thenceforth should be
great among the Gentiles--to them "it was given to know the mysteries of
God:"[5] not to understand things incomprehensible. That would be a
contradiction in terms: a thing impossible. How can a person comprehend
that which passeth all understanding? But it may be said, there are things
which are incomprehensible. Not so. They may be a secret to us while, in
this school-house, the earth, the {14} pedagogue Necessity is teaching us
only the rudiments of the laws of God as developed in nature or in mind;
but, when the _scintilla divinitatis_, hidden in these "earthen
vessels,"[6] shall have been set free, and (while "the dust returns to the
earth as it was") rises unto Him that breathed into us that "spiritus" or
"breath of life"--when we shall hereafter have been "newly born" into a
spiritual state of higher existence--then may we hope that what is secret
to us now, may become a mystery or revealed secret to us hereafter. It is
not all of life to terminate our existence on this earth. This is but the
school-house in the commencement of eternity. These mysteries, now secrets
to us, are created and maintained by the fixed laws of Him "who is without
variableness or shadow of turning." The revelations thereof belong to a
higher kingdom, which "flesh and blood can not inherit," yet in which every
soul "shall be made alive."[7] Then shall these secrets be unfolded in
proportion to the cultivation of the mind and talents here