“Who hath stood in the secret counsel of the Lord, so as to perceive and bear His word?” (Jeremiah 23:18)

No mortal dares answer the query of Jeremiah the prophet by pointing triumphantly to his own self. No human being can presume to have learned how occurrences befalling this world are made to fulfill the intention of its sovereign Creator. All may rather confess, like the psalmist, that we are utterly ignorant —no better than senseless beasts—in our comprehension of the ways of God. Philosophy — that is, the philosophy which admits & power distinct from nature— represents the Omnipotent impassive, carrying out undeviatingly the laws He originally ordained; Prophetism describes the Lord as acting from yearnings and affections—widely discordant teachings, which the very wisest can never reconcile. Our minds do suggest our incapacity to influence the Supreme Judge, and yet our hearts give ns assurance that He will regard us benignantly when we approach Him in the earnestness of faith.

Ought we, then, to hold fast to the instincts of the heart, and cast off the reflections of the mind? Not exactly. Both our sentiments and our meditative faculties are gifts from on high. We can no more discard the latter and embrace the former, or vice versa, than divide ourselves into two parts. But as the causes and their effects, by which the All-knowing Ruler governs the universe, are hidden from us, and as they will always baffle our profoundest researches, we spontaneously follow promptings that our nature understands well and sensibly feels. They are the impulses which draw the child to his loving parent.

Let ns readily concede that a change of purpose in the prescient Lord is an impossibility; but His immutability, like His existence, is above our penetration, while the revelation of His merciful attributes responds to our wants. Hence in our journey through life we prefer oftener to consult prophetism than philosophy. Holy Writ speaks to us in language easy and comforting; and when, in our devious paths here below, we meet with escapes which the soberest of human calculations could not have foreseen, we are instructed to call them signal acts of divine condescension, or miracles.

Last Saturday we experienced one of those deeds of supernal grace. The belief prevailed that medical skill had exhausted its curative powers. “Death held in its pitiless grasp the precious life whose preservation had called forth the best appliances of modern science and the tenderest watching.” Under that saddening impression we entered the house of prayer. Our minds could only contemplate what all considered the inevitable. Still our hearts impelled us before the oracle of the Lord. Was the Heavenly King moved by the sight of His confiding suppliants? Did the anguish of a people at the anticipation of an impending bereavement, together with the deep sympathy of civilized nations, stir up celestial compassion? Walking in the light of the Scriptures, I answer, Yes; even though my intellect spurns the idea of an alteration of purpose in the Deity. His will remained doubtlessly unchanged; but our pious emotions and patriotic sentiments occasioned, in a manner incomprehensible to us, yet certain, the performance of a blissful design.

Oh! let us not seek the unfathomable; but let us continue in close intercommunion with the Spirit that rules the world, until salvation comes. Let us still pray, fervently pray.