e world.

Then comes the terrible question--too many, alas! have not got it
answered rightly yet--

But are there any rules at all in the world? Does The Lord manage the
world by rules and laws? Or does He let things go by chance and
accident, and take no care about them? Is there such a thing as God's
Providence: or is there not? To that the Psalmist answers firmly,
because he is inspired by the Spirit of God--

O Lord, Thy Word endureth--is settled--for ever in heaven. In Thee is no
carelessness, neglect, slothfulness, nor caprice. Thou hast no
variableness, neither shadow of turning. Thou hast laid the foundation
of the earth, and it abideth. They continue this day according to Thine
ordinance; for all things serve Thee. The world is full of settled and
enduring rules and laws; and God keeps to them. The Psalmist looks at
the sun, moon and stars over his head, each keeping its settled course,
and its settled season: and he sees them all obeying law. He looks at
summer and winter, seedtime and harvest: and he sees them obeying law. He
looks at birth and growth, at decay and death; and sees them too, obeying
law. He looks at the very flowers beneath his feet, and the buds in the
woodland, and all the crowd of living things about him, animal, vegetable
and mineral: and they too obey law; each after their kind. The world, he
says, is full of law. It is a settled world, an orderly world, made and
governed by a Lord of order, who makes laws and enforces laws; a Lord
whose Word endures for ever in heaven. Therefore--he feels--I can trust
that Lord. If He has laws for the beasts and birds, He must have, much
more, laws for men. If He has laws for men's bodies, much more has He
laws for their souls. What I have to do, is to ask Him to teach me those
laws, that I may live.

But then comes another, and even a more awful question--If I ask Him,
will He teach me? Alas! alas! too many have not found the answer yet;
too many of those who know most about the Laws of Nature, and reverence
those laws most: and all honour to them for so doing; for, even though
they know it not, they are preparing the way of the Lord, and making His
paths straight. But they have not found the right answer to that
question yet. Still there the question is; and you and I, and every soul
of man, must get some reasonable answer or other to it, if we wish to be
men indeed, men in spirit and in truth; and it is this--

If I ask this