Some men neglect, if they do not wholly reject, the Gospel, because many of its truths are bounded by horizons of impenetrable mystery. But the fact of human existence under its existing conditions is also a mystery which no man's reason can fully comprehend. Yet who is foolish enough to either neglect his interest in life, or to deny the fact that he lives? Scripture does not profess to impart complete knowledge of human relations to the divine, but expressly affirms that it is only a glass through which we see "darkly." Hence we know (only) in part. In the hereafter it promises that we "shall know" even as we also are "known." Why, then do men break their faith by madly dashing it against the unknown? There is enough known to give them peace, joy, hope and purity, if they will follow its light toward that horizon of mystery which is but the cloud of human ignorance, destined to vanish away when the man rises, in all the glory of his renewed nature, from his mortal to his immortal life. Till then we do well to rejoice in all the truth we can understand, and to keep in mind, with our poet Longfellow, that—
"There are great truths that pitch their shining tents
Outside our walls, and though but dimly seen
In the grey dawn, they will be manifest
When the light widens into perfect day."
—Zion's Herald.
