those words may mean, or may not mean, I do not intend to argue now.
I only quote them to shew you that St Paul, just as much as any Old
Testament thinker, believed that there were often mysteries, ay,
tragedies, in the lives, not only of individuals, nor of families, but of
whole races, to which we shortsighted mortals could assign no rational or
moral final cause, but must simply do that which Spinoza forbade us to
do, namely--"In every unknown case, flee unto God;" and say--"It is the
Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good;"--certain of this, which the
Cross and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ shewed forth as nothing else
in heaven or earth could shew--that the will of God toward man is an
utterly good will; and that therefore what seemeth good to Him, will be
good in act and fact.

It is this faith, and I believe this faith alone, which can enable truly
feeling spirits to keep anything like equanimity, if they dwell long and
earnestly on the miseries of mankind; on sorrow, pain, bereavement; on
the fate of many a widow and orphan; on sudden, premature, and often
agonizing death--but why pain you with a catalogue of ills, which all,
save--thank God--the youngest, know too well?

And it is that want of faith in the will and character of a living God,
which makes, and will always make, infidelity a sad state of mind--a
theory of man and the universe, which contains no gospel or good news for
man.

I do not speak now of atheism, dogmatic, self-satisfied, insolent cynic.
I speak especially to-night of a form of unbelief far more attractive,
which is spreading, I believe, among people often of high intellect,
often of virtuous life, often of great attainments in art, science, or
literature. Such repudiate, and justly, the name of theists: but they
decline, and justly, the name of atheists. They would--the finest and
purest spirits among them--accept only too heartily the whole of the
Psalm which I have chosen for my text, save its ascription and the last
verse. We too--they would say--do not wish to be high-minded, and
dogmatize, and assert, and condemn. We too do not wish to meddle with
matters too high for us, or for any human intellect. We too wish to
refrain ourselves from asserting what--however pleasant--we cannot prove;
and to wean ourselves--however really painful the process--from the milk,
the mere child's food, on which Mother Church has brought up the nations
of Europe for the last 1500 years. But fo