Augustine.—“Is bound to believe what he cannot understand!”
Aumerle.—“Augustine, Augustine, all nature refutes you! What do we understand of the physical wonders that have environed man for thousands of years? We note facts, but in what innumerable instances are we baffled when we attempt to trace back effects to their causes! We hear the power of electricity in the thunder-clap, see it in the flash of lightning, nay, make it the servant of our will to unite distant continents together; but who can say that he understands it? We give it a name, we calculate its force, but reason grasps not its nature. Who can say how the soul is united to the body? Who can say what the faculty of memory may be, where it hoards up its life-accumulated treasures, and produces on the moment from the mass the very idea which it requires? These are not foreign subjects, they are subjects brought daily to the attention of myriads of reasoning beings, and during sixty centuries what has reason made of them? She is content to give up her place to faith; we believe, but we cannot understand. And can we expect that aught else should be the case when a weak, helpless worm like man fixes his thoughts upon the solemn mysteries of the invisible world,—when the finite attempts to comprehend the infinite! Reason, your boasted reason, at once shows the folly of such an expectation. On this earth we are in the infancy of our existence. As little could the young child of a monarch, while scarcely yet able to read, expect to grasp the difficult science of administration, and make himself master of the details of the business of an empire, as man, with his limited faculties, fathom the deep things of God!”
“In this your favourite simile,” said Augustine, “you must admit that some children are more advanced than the rest.”
“I believe that he is most advanced in spiritual knowledge,” replied Aumerle, “who can adopt the language of the gifted warrior-king of Israel.” He opened the Bible which lay on the table, and read aloud from the 131st Psalm:—
“Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.”
“One would almost think,” observed Augustine, “that you consider intellect as rather a disqualification than a help in penetrating the mysteries of religion.”
“These mysteries are beyond the province allotted to human intellect,” replied his brother. “The Bible assures us that the natural man receiveth not the things of God, for they are spiritually discerned. Our Lord thanked his Father that these things, being hidden from the wise and prudent (wise in the world’s wisdom, prudent in their own eyes), were yet revealed unto babes. Depend upon it, my dear brother,” continued the clergyman earnestly, “the true stumbling-block in our path is our pride! Is it not written in the word, The meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his way?”
“Do you mean to assert,” said Augustine, “that none of the meek and devout have ever been troubled with difficulties and doubts?”
“Not so; I believe that many of God’s best servants have been much exercised with such spiritual trials. But it has been beautifully written, ‘A sign is granted to the doubt of love which is not given to the doubt of indifference.’ The meek are not left in darkness,—such are not given up to the adversary. But it is because they oppose him, not in the intellectual armour of subtle reasoning and metaphysical argument, but armed with the sling of prayer, humble and persevering prayer. To such the promise of the Comforter is given, whose office is to guide unto all truth.’”