"You may ask why does God restrict Himself to the human instrument in bearing the tidings, and _through the tidings the effective result_, of the Redemption? I cannot tell you why, but I see that it is so. A light from heaven may overpower a Saul of Tarsus, and he may hear words straight from the ascended Christ. But a Christian _man_--Ananias--must be sent to tell him how to wash away his sins, and to minister the Holy Spirit to him. An angel may communicate with Cornelius, the Centurion, but he stays his lips from uttering the Gospel of Christ. That privilege is reserved for the _human_ lips of Peter. Is it not sufficient that the Commander has said, 'Go _ye_'? Had the task been set for angels, it would have been accomplished long since, for _they_ do His pleasure. But He trusted it to us, who might be expected to be so bound by ties of gratitude to His will that we would eagerly spring to do His bidding. And we have miserably failed. 'Is there not another way?' we languidly ask in the face of the command. I do not see another way. But the Lord has most clearly outlined _this_ way: _That the Gospel should be preached in all the world to every creature, and that the one who believes and is baptized should be saved_. To sit and philosophically consider that an infinite God must surely find some other way if we fail in this, is not reverence for His wisdom. It is mutiny." Some of the ladies looked startled at this bold setting forth of the case, and remembered how, privately, they had given voice to the sentiments under criticism before coming to the meeting. The Secretary's keen face betrayed thorough assent to what the speaker was saying, and the President was glad that she held such a relation as she did to a cause so evidently right, with a reverse side so evidently wrong. The plain little body of the Church Social beamed thorough sympathy. "Do you say," continued Mr. Carew, "that God will be merciful to the heathen because of their ignorance? I believe He will, and do not doubt that it will be 'more tolerable' for those who have never heard than for those in this country (heathen also, in the Scriptural sense) who, having often heard, are still rejectors of the Gospel. But there is a greater question involved than that of lessened stripes or mitigated woe. Do you say that men will be _saved_ by lack of knowledge? The prophet said his people _perished_ for lack of it! Ah, if God had ordained ignorance to be the way of salvation He might have spared Himself great cost!--cost of the redemption sacrifice, and of its proclamation, often in martyr blood. But He confers His boon to faith and 'faith cometh by _hearing_.'