Holiness—that is, obedience—is surely the rock upon which alone we can build any faith that will endure. Standing firmly on that rock, and on that only, we may hope to catch some glimpses of the Divine mysteries. “Clouds and darkness are round about Thee, but righteousness and truth are the habitation of Thy throne.” It ill becomes us to attempt to explain all the dealings of God with man, still more the mysteries of the Divine Being and Nature; and that which must for ever remain a mystery to the most faithful of His children it is idle indeed to undertake to explain to others. Yet let us never flinch from bearing witness to that of which through these awful clouds we have from time to time been permitted to obtain some broken vision. Let us never cease to do what in us lies to persuade our fellows to lift their eyes also to the heavens, and though the vision may tarry, to wait for it in steadfast patience. They may call us dreamers, and we may think them blind. When we speak of the stars, they may say we are idly romancing about a mere painted ceiling. But the end is not yet. No roof of human workmanship will endure for ever. Sooner or later all that is of earth must perish and crumble away. Then is the time for the children of light to “lift up their heads,” knowing that “their redemption draweth nigh.” For beyond all words and all proofs lies the true anchorage of the spirit, to which every firmly rooted life bears a witness neither needing nor admitting of utterance. Deeper than all need of mere conviction is the need of rest and stability. We must be at rest before we can be free. In quietness and in confidence is our strength. While our hearts are tossed and agitated by every wave of this troublesome world, while the shadows of passing things have power to distract and confuse our vision, we cannot clearly discern that truth which alone can make us free. Truly “there remaineth a rest for the people of God;” a satisfying, soul-restoring fulness of rest of which some of us have begun to taste. Some of us know assuredly that nothing perishable is the habitation of our spirits. Some of us know what it is to be willingly brought into an order flowing perceptibly and perpetually from the one unchangeable will of God, in which alone can our own will be harmonized and made steadfast. Some of us are learning ever more and more fully to accept the Father’s will because it _is_ the will of the Father, entering more and more truly day by day into the spirit of sonship. To experience in our own hearts the harmonizing, purifying, invigorating power of the Divine will is to be at rest for ourselves and for others; not to be set free from suffering or to become indifferent to it, but to be undisturbed by it—to know that underneath all the agitations of the creatures are the everlasting arms; to receive strength to consent to whatever is ordained by that blessed will, and to resist whatever is opposed to it.