strangers their most sacred and private thoughts; and so it sometimes happens that a man speaks lightly of religion in order to avoid any real discussion; in fact, he "answers a fool according to his folly." Moreover, some men are so very reverent in heart, so utterly devoted to religion, that they are comparatively careless of their manner. Pierced through and through by a sense of God's presence, it never strikes them that they need prove their reverence. And so reverence itself causes apparent irreverence.

Again, we err greatly in our judgment of doubters in religion; most men are not sufficiently interested in the subject to feel doubt. Dives has no doubts, and he thinks St. Thomas a very wicked person. The true sources of a great deal of doubt are (1) Real humanity and a Christ-like sensitiveness of heart, which often make it almost impossible for men to believe that this apparently God-forsaken world, with its unutterable sorrows and hideous cruelties, is really watched over by an all-powerful and all-loving Creator. But Dives, not caring for the sufferings of Lazarus, finds it easy to believe. (2) Another frequent source of doubt is spirituality of nature. The soul thirsts after God, and is cast down and saddened by His apparent absence from His own creation.

But Dives knows nothing of this Divine thirst of the soul. God is quite as much present to him as he

H

wishes; and therefore Dives sees nothing strange, anomalous, or perplexing in the state of the world, and so he is quite ready to anathematise St. Thomas. When the truest children of Israel are constrained by unutterable sorrow to sit down by the unloved waters of Babylon, and weep for that beloved city whose glory they may not see, then Dives preaches to them a heartless optimism. His shallow mind can see no reason for refusing to "sing the Lord's song in a strange land." He reproaches the baffled eagle for not rejoicing in the gilded cage of its abhorred captivity. He condemns us for not chanting a Te Deum for the world's riches, when our whole souls are absorbed in that most sorrowful aspiration of despairing love" Oh that I knew where I might find Him!"

Thus, spirituality of nature, which is the great source of faith, is also very often a source of doubt. Spiritual earnestness impels us to seek God, and very often the same earnestness causes us to doubt the reality of God's presence in this forlorn world. But God knows well how to distinguish between the doubt caused by wickedness and the doubt caused by love. God's final judgment of us will be most discriminating. "There are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last."

There are two sorts of doubters described by the

Bible. Doubters of the one sort say unto God, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." Doubters of the other sort bemoan themselves in the language of bewildered Job, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!" Not to discriminate the one set of doubters from the other is to display either great unfairness or great stupidity.

VIII.

WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?

Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.Acts xvi. 29-31.

VALUABLE though St. Paul's answer doubtless was to him who heard it, one is yet almost tempted at times to wish that it had never been given; for it has been very much abused in the same sort of way as valuable prescriptions given by physicians of the body are often abused. A supposed infallible nostrum saves much trouble, but it tends to prevent a careful and searching diagnosis of each individual case. If colchicum were thought to cure gout under all circumstances, we should know far less about that disease than we now know. The belief that this most valuable spiritual prescription of St. Paul's will cure the soul's maladies, always and everywhere, has

often done harm, by preventing due attention being given to the multifarious and ever-varying phenomena of moral and spiritual disease.

Quackery has often been rampant amongst physicians of the soul. They have bidden their patients take a certain spiritual remedy, and if that remedy has failed they have given them up as incurable. Our Lord Himself acted very differently. He "knew what was in man;" He knew the strange and bewildering complexity of the soul's maladies. He knew that morally, no less than physically, “what is one man's meat is another man's poison." He did not apply the same treatment to the Pharisee, puffed up with self-satisfaction, to the well-meaning rich young man, and the penitent woman that was a sinner. Of what use would spiritual tonics have been to that sleek and comfortable Pharisee? Of what use would drastic medicines have been to that selfcondemned and broken-hearted woman ?

Our Lord did not tell the rich young man to believe in Him, or even in the Father who had sent Him. He saw clearly that a different mode of treatment was needed by Him at that particular crisis. But human physicians of the soul have for the most part been far less considerate and careful in their treatment of the soul's diseases. When asked if they could minister to a mind or soul diseased, they have