Science has been defined by someone as “the discovery of the changeless in the ever-changing.” I was sitting in a weak, fatigued state of mind once in a train at a great terminus. We were waiting for the moment of departure, and not being drawn up to the end of the platforms, trains moved constantly on either side of us. To my tired head—I had lately come off the sea, which had been a rough one—I did not seem able to make out whether it was our train or the other that was in motion when this occurred. Presently my eyes found a refuge in the contemplation of a massive column within sight. So long as they rested there, all was simple. I saw it was the others that were in motion, and we were quiet.
God is the changeless amid the ever-changing. If the eye of our soul is fixed on Him, all else adjusts itself. We have “an anchor sure and steadfast.”
The conies, says the wise man in the book of Proverbs, “are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks.” The conies belong to the same family as do our rabbits, but they have not paws suitable for burrowing, and their homes are in the clefts of the immovable rocks. Thither they flee to hide themselves when the enemy is in pursuit, or when the elements are adverse. They find tiny fastnesses, where, protected from all stress of weather, they can sleep in safety, and into which the great birds of prey cannot penetrate.
For some situations our powers of adaptability are all inadequate. The combat is too great for our forces, and the best course, the wisest, nay, often the only possible course lies in flight and in seeking a haven of refuge, until, as the Psalmist says, “the tyranny is overpast.” “I will flee to the Rock to hide me.” And as “that feeble folk, the conies” make their houses in the rocks, so we, like the wise man in the parable, build our house on the Rock, not on the shifting foundations of sand.
(To be continued.)
THE COURTSHIP OF CATHERINE WEST.
CHAPTER I.
