employ it properly. One Sabbath afternoon she sat in her room, with her cheek on her hand, absorbed in earnest thought. Her little Bible lay on her lap, and she was pondering the text she had heard that morning. Charon came and nestled his huge head against her. Presently she heard the quick tramp of hoofs and whir of wheels; and soon after her husband entered and sat down beside her.
“What are you thinking of?” said he, passing his hand over her head caressingly.
“Thinking of my life–of the bygone years of struggle.”
“They are past, and can trouble you no more. ‘Let the dead past bury its dead!'”
“No; my past can never die. I ponder it often, and it does me good; strengthens me, by keeping me humble. I was just thinking of the dreary, desolate days and nights I passed, searching for a true philosophy and going further astray with every effort. I was so proud of my intellect; put so much faith in my own powers; it was no wonder I was so benighted.”
“Where is your old worship of genius?” asked her husband, watching her curiously.
“I have not lost it all. I hope I never shall. Human genius has accomplished a vast deal for man’s temporal existence. The physical sciences have been wheeled forward in the march of mind, and man’s earthly path gemmed with all that a merely sensual nature could desire. But, looking aside from these channels, what has it effected for philosophy, that great burden, which constantly recalls the fabled labors of Sisyphus and the Danaides? Since the rising of Bethlehem’s star, in the cloudy sky of polytheism, what has human genius discovered of God, eternity, destiny? Metaphysicians build gorgeous cloud palaces, but the soul cannot dwell in their cold, misty atmosphere. Antiquarians wrangle and write; Egypt’s moldering monuments are raked from their desert graves, and made the theme of scientific debate; but has all this learned disputation contributed one iota to clear the thorny way of strict morality? Put the Bible out of sight, and how much will human intellect discover concerning our origin-our ultimate destiny? In the morning of time sages handled these vital questions, and died, not one step nearer the truth than when they began. Now, our philosophers struggle, earnestly and honestly, to make plain the same inscrutable mysteries. Yes; blot out the records of Moses, and we would grope in starless night; for, notwithstanding the many priceless blessings it has discovered for man, the torch of science will never pierce and illumine the recesses over which Almighty God has hung his veil. Here we see, indeed, as ‘through a glass, darkly.’ Yet I believe the day is already dawning when scientific data will not only cease to be antagonistic to Scriptural accounts, but will deepen the impress of Divinity on the pages of Holy Writ; when ‘the torch shall be taken out of the hand of the infidel, and set to burn in the temple of the living God’; when Science and Religion shall link hands. I revere the lonely thinkers to whom the world is indebted for its great inventions. I honor the tireless laborers who toil in laboratories; who sweep midnight skies in search of new worlds; who unheave primeval rocks, hunting for footsteps of Deity; and I believe that every scientific fact will ultimately prove but another lamp planted along the path which leads to a knowledge of Jehovah! Ah! it is indeed peculiarly the duty of Christians ‘to watch, with reverence and joy, the unveiling of the august brow of Nature by the hand of Science; and to be ready to call mankind to a worship ever new’! Human thought subserves many useful, nay, noble, ends; the Creator gave it, as a powerful instrument, to improve man’s temporal condition; but oh, sir, I speak of what I know, when I say: alas, for that soul who forsakes the divine ark, and embarks on the gilded toys of man’s invention, hoping to breast the billows of life and be anchored safely in the harbor of eternal rest! The heathens, ‘having no law, are a law unto themselves’; but for such as deliberately reject the given light, only bitter darkness remains. I know it; for I, too, once groped, wailing for help.”
“Your religion is full of mystery,” said her husband gravely.
“Yes; of divine mystery. Truly, ‘a God comprehended is no God at all!’ Christianity is clear, as to rules of life and duty. There is no mystery left about the directions to man; yet there is a divine mystery infolding it, which tells of its divine origin, and promises a fuller revelation when man is fitted to receive it. If it were not so we would call it man’s invention. You turn from Revelation because it contains some things you cannot comprehend; yet you plunge into a deeper, darker mystery when you embrace the theory of an eternal, self-existing universe, having no intelligent creator, yet constantly creating intelligent beings. Sir, can you understand how matter creates mind?”
She had laid her Bible on his knee; her folded hands rested upon it, and her gray eyes, clear and earnest, looked up reverently into her husband’s noble face. His soft hand wandered over her head, and he seemed pondering her words.
May God aid the wife in her holy work of love!