Word of God to teach me His Laws--Will He teach me? Will
He hear me? Can He hear: or is He Himself a mere brute force, a law of
nature and necessity? And even if not, will He hear? Or is He, too,
like those Epicurean gods, of whom our great poet sings--a sad and
hopeless song:--

They lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurled
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curled
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world,
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery
sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, _and praying
hands_.

_And praying hands_. Oh, my friends, is not the question of all
questions for such poor mortal souls as you and me, beset by ignorance
and weakness, and passions which are our own worst enemies, and chances
and catastrophes which we cannot avert--Is not the question of all
questions for such as us--Will this same Word of God--will any unseen
being out of the infinite void which surrounds our little speck of a
planet, take any notice of our praying hands? Will He hear us, teach us,
when we cry? Or is God, and The Word of God, like those old heathen
gods? Is He a God who hides Himself, and leaves us to despair and
chance: or is He a God who hears, and gives us even a single ray of hope?
Is He a gracious God, who will hear every man's tale, however clumsily
told, and judge it according to its merits: or even--for that is better
than dead silence and carelessness--according to its demerits? Is He a
just God? Or has He likes and dislikes, favourites and victims; as human
rulers and statesmen, and human parties too, and mobs, are wont to have?
May He not, even, like those Epicurean gods, despise men? find a proud
satisfaction in deceiving them; or at least letting them deceive
themselves?--in playing with their ignorance, and leaving them to reap
the fruits of their own childishness?

To that the Psalmist answers--and I know not how he learnt to answer so,
save by the inspiration of the Spirit of God; for I know well that
neither flesh and blood, the experience of his own brain, thoughts, and
emotions, nor the world around him, either of nature or of man, would
ever have revealed that to him--to that he answers confidently, in spite
of all appearances--

Thy truth, O Lord, abideth from one generation to another. Thou art a
truthful