the eye of his faith cannot pierce through, it sees a present God so clearly; and he cannot make strong affirmations about them, but only cry, "Lord I believe, help Thou mine unbelief.”

This man does not glory in his doubts; rather bears them as a burden. It pains him when he is compelled to discard some story as untrue which is helpful to the faith of his brother Christians, some belief that he and they have long held in common; nor is he altogether without fear lest that inner vital faith by which he lives may be weakened by discarding some of its earlier props. He will not palter with the truth or feign a belief which he does not possess; but he moves cautiously, reluctantly away from the old landmarks, and his cry is for more light.

We are apt to imagine that we should have found it easier to believe if we had lived in some other time and clime than this. It may, indeed, be so as regards the mere intellectual belief in propositions, for this is an age of restless questioning, and the light pouring in on all sides in this twentieth century dazzles our eyes. But as regards that practical reliance upon God, which we understand by faith, is not the difficulty pretty much the same for all ages? The Persian poet, Omar Khayyam, asks, "If the revolutions of the universe have brought thee no joy, why ask whether there be seven heavens or eight? And if we cannot discern God and trust in God in the twentieth century, we should have found it just a hard had our lot been cast in the first or the twentyfirst. We fancy, perhaps, that had we lived in the days of the apostles we should have found faiths

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easier, or that in some future age or far-off clime, we might find the pathway clearer. But we probably delude ourselves; for, as Dr. Martineau has finely said, “Could a wish remove us to any distant sphere supposed to be divine, the heavenly presence would flit away as we arrived, and would leave us still amid the same material elements, that seem to hide the infinite vision from our eyes. Go where we may, we seem mysteriously to carry our own sphere of darkness with us; for who can quit his own centre or escape the point of view that belongs to his own identity? He who is not with God already can by no path of space approach Him. In vain would you lend him the wing of an angel, or the speed of light; in vain plant him here or there, on this side of death, or on that; he is in the outer darkness still, having that inner blindness which would leave him in the pitchy night, though, like the angel in the Apocalypse, he were standing in the sun. But, ceasing all vain endeavours, and remaining with his foot on this weary earth, let the touch of sorrow, or the tears of conscience, or the toils of duty, or the touch of love open the hidden places of his affections, and the distance, infinite before, wholly disappears; and he finds, like the patriarch, that though the stone is his pillow and the earth his bed, he is yet in the very house of God, and at the gate of heaven."

III. The narrative closes with Christ's response to the father's cry, "Help Thou my unbelief."

He pitied the miserable condition of the boy, and sympathized with the agonized solicitude of a loving father. He looked with boundless com

passion on the struggle going on in that father's heart. He recognized all the difficulties with which the man's faith had to contend. He would not break this bruised reed. He did not despise this half-believing, half-doubting soul; and, since his belief, as far as it went, was of the practical kind, not a theory, but an actual reliance, even if imperfect, on the power and goodness of the Lord, Jesus responded in a practical way. He restored the boy to health. So, wavering belief was made strong, and the father, his arm round his son's neck, went his way home rejoicing in the full assurance of faith.

Here the heart of God is unveiled to us; and His ways do not change. Here we see how He feels towards us, and how He will deal with us when He beholds us struggling with the heart of unbelief and the manifold difficulties of life. His attitude is one of infinite compassion; and His help, though it may be delayed, is certain. Does not He know all we have to contend with? Does not He know all the unsettlement of the age, all the perplexities that arise even from the increase of knowledge, all the strange contradictions with which the world abounds, all the challenges to faith that are given by science and history? Does not He know that we are spirits imprisoned in the flesh, and that the senses hem us in and keep us down, impose on us and make it hard to realize that all they show is but a series of fleeting phenomena, and that it is the unseen things that are eternal? He has made us, does not He know? Does not He know that some of us are so constituted that in any course or question proposed to us, we always see plainest the difficulties and

objections; that we always expect the worst to happen, and always find the thing we most wish to believe, just the thing that seems impossible? Does not He who knoweth our frame consider all this, allow for this as Jesus did with that distracted father? Does not He distinguish between the shallow, flippant sceptic and the earnest seeker after truth, between the man who gladly doubts and would fain deny all the sanctions of religion that he may indulge his own inclinations, and the man whose self-will and unbelief are a grief and burden to him, who would fain say from the heart, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O my God; if only that will were a little clearer, and my hold on Thee a little stronger." He does know: He does consider: He does distinguish. And for that loyal soul who through all doubts and difficulties holds on to Christ, his inmost nature responding to God's unveiling in His Son, so that he feels here, if anywhere, is God revealed; here, if anywhere, is a Saviour of men; here in the track of his steps is the path I must tread; here is my Master and Lord, through fire and sword, if need be, I will follow him: for that loyal soul I say, there shall arise light out of darkness. The cry "Help Thou my unbelief," does not go up into deaf ears. The answer as of old will be through healing. Through actual victory in the struggle with evil, faith will be confirmed. And that divine attraction in Christ which has so long held him fast, in spite of stress and strain, as the cable holds the storm-tossed ship, will at last draw him into the haven where he would be.

VII

THE FUTILITY OF SPASMODIC RELIGION AS SHOWN IN THE HISTORY OF BALAAM

Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel.”—REV. ii. 14.

WITH most people the love of the marvellous is stronger than the love of moral and spiritual truth. With ninety-nine out of a hundred the one feature in the story of Balaam that stamps itself on their minds is the speaking ass. Balaam and his ass are joined together in common speech as the heroes of the tale. The wealth of wisdom to be gathered from other portions of the narrative is neglected. The ass is singled out as the sole object of regard, for admiring wonder or sceptical attack as the case may be. Whether it be some hidden affinity of nature that makes the ass the object of supreme interest to so many, I cannot say. At any rate I will give my hearers credit for higher intelligence, and presume that they are more concerned with the subtle play of motive and development of character in this very remarkable but truly human prophet, than in the incidental notice of the beast that carried him. I shall simply let the ass speak for itself. If it tells some of my audience that a certain amount