There are many professing Christians who are constantly plunged in gloom. Unbelievers may point the finger at them, and say, "They believe in God, in salvation, and in heaven, but see what an effect it has on them. Do they really believe?" Oh, yes, they really believe, but they do not obey; and no amount of faith brings any lasting happiness apart from obedience. The law requires us to love God, to love men; it requires us to abstain from all appearance of evil, to touch not the unclean thing; it bids us love not the world, it tells us how impossible the double service of God and mammon is. Now though we believe it all it can give us nothing but pain unless we live up to it. If there is a vision and we shut our eyes to it, if there is a law and we turn away from it, woe unto us! But if we receive the vision, if we loyally and earnestly keep the law, the world cannot fathom the depth of our peace, nor rise to the height of our joy. FOOTNOTES: [690] Isa. ii. 3. [691] "Modern Science and Modern Thought" (pp. 289, 290), by S. Laing. Chapman & Hall: 1890. [692] _Cf._ Prov. xxviii. 4, 9:-- "They that forsake the law praise the wicked: But such as keep the law contend with them. He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law Even his prayer is an abomination." XXX. _THE WORDS OF AGUR._ The rendering of the first verse of this chapter is very uncertain. Without attempting to discuss the many conjectural emendations, we must briefly indicate the view which is here taken. A slight alteration in the pointing (אֵל לָאִיתִי instead of the Masoretic reading לְאִיתִיאֵל) changes the proper name Ithiel into a significant verb; and another slight change (וָאֵכֶל for וְאֻכָל) gives us another verb in the place of Ucal. To remove the difficulty of the word "oracle," a difficulty which arises from the fact that the chapter which follows is not a prophetic utterance of the kind to which that word might be applied, it is necessary, with Grätz, to make a more serious change, and to read הַמּשֵׁל for הַמַּשָּׂא. And to explain the word הַנֶּבֶר, which occurs in a similar connection in Numb. xxiv. 3, 15, and 2 Sam. xxiii. 1, we must suppose that some relative clause defining the nature of "the man" has been dropped. The great uncertainty of the text is witnessed by the LXX., who place this passage after xxiv. 23, and give a rendering which has very little resemblance to our present Hebrew text. It is highly probable, both from the subject matter and from the numerical arrangements, which are thoroughly Rabbinical, that this chapter and chap. xxxi. are of late origin, and represent the last phase of the proverbial literature of Israel in the days after the return from the Exile. If this be so, the obscurity and uncertainty are characteristic of an artificial