Who could gainsay this? The rationalist may sneer at it, and raise a thousand questions. Faith gazes on that fruit-bearing rod, and sees in it a lovely figure of the new creation, in the which all things are of God. Infidelity may argue on the ground of the apparent impossibility of a dry stick budding, blossoming, and bearing fruit in the course of one night. But to whom does it appear impossible? To the infidel—the rationalist—the skeptic. And why? Because he always shuts out God. Let us remember this. _Infidelity invariably shuts out God._ Its reasonings are carried on and its conclusions reached in midnight darkness. There is not so much as a single ray of true light in the whole of that sphere in which infidelity operates. It excludes the only source of light, and leaves the soul wrapped in the shades and deep gloom of a darkness that may be felt. It is well for the young reader to pause here, and deeply ponder this solemn fact. Let him calmly and seriously reflect on this special feature of infidelity—rationalism—or skepticism. It begins, continues, and ends with shutting out God. It would approach the mystery of Aaron’s budding, blossoming, fruit-bearing rod with a godless, audacious “_How?_” This is the infidel’s great argument? He can raise ten thousand questions, but never settle one. He will teach you how to doubt, but never how to believe. He will lead you to doubt every thing, but gives you nothing to believe. Such, beloved reader, is infidelity. It is of Satan, who ever has been, is, and will be the great question-raiser. Wherever you trace Satan, you will always find him raising questions. He fills the heart with all sorts of “ifs” and “hows,” and thus plunges the soul in thick darkness. If he can only succeed in raising a question, he has gained his point; but he is perfectly powerless with a simple soul that just believes that God is, and God has spoken. Here is faith’s noble answer to the infidel’s questions—its divine solution of all the infidel’s difficulties. Faith always brings in the very One that infidelity always shuts out. It thinks with God; infidelity thinks without Him. Hence, then, we would say to the Christian reader, and specially to the young Christian, never admit questions when God has spoken. If you do, Satan will have you under his foot in a moment. Your only security against him is found in that one impregnable, immortal sentence, “It is written.” It will never do to argue with him on the ground of experience, of feeling, or of observation; it must be absolutely and exclusively on the ground of this, that God is, and that God has spoken. Satan can make no hand of this weighty argument at all. It is invincible. Every thing else he can shiver to pieces, but this confounds him and puts him to flight at once.