orld?"

"Of course I do."

"And that He made you an Englishman, and so _sent_ you to England; and
that He made you a sea-captain, and among other places _sent_ you to
Newfoundland."

"Well--I--I suppose He did," returned the captain, with that puzzled
expression of countenance which was wont to indicate that his mind was
grappling difficulties.

"Well, then," continued Paul, "_being_ good, of course the Almighty sent
us to _do_ good; but He also gave us free wills, which just means
permission to do as we please; so it remains to be seen whether we will
use our free wills in working with Him, or in _trying_ to work against
Him, for, strange to say, we cannot really work against God, we can only
_try_ to do it, and in so trying we establish the fact of our own
wickedness; but His grand and good purposes shall be carried out in
spite of us notwithstanding, for he can bring good out of evil."

"Now, Paul, I've lost soundings altogether, and it's my opinion that you
are foolishly talking about things that you, don't understand."

"I never heard, Master Trench, that it was foolish to talk about what
one does not understand! On the contrary, it is by talking of things
that we don't understand that we manage at last to understand them. You
had a deal of talking about navigation, had you not, before you
understood it?"

"Look 'ee here, lad," said Trench, stopping suddenly, with his legs
planted firmly apart as though on the quarter-deck of his ship in a
cross sea, while he drove his right fist into the palm of his left hand
argumentatively. "Look 'ee here. How can it be possible that--that--
pooh! Come along, we'll never get on with our survey of the land if we
dispute at this rate."

The stout mariner turned away with an air of exasperation, and resumed
his walk at a rapid pace, closely followed by his amused friend and son.

This irreverent mode of dismissing a grave and difficult subject was not
peculiar to Captain Trench. It has probably been adopted by those who
shrink from mental effort ever since the days of Adam and Eve. Minds
great and small have exercised themselves since the beginning of time on
this perplexing subject--God's sovereignty and man's free will--with
benefit, probably, to themselves. We recommend it in passing, good
reader, to your attention, and we will claim to be guiltless of
presumption in thus advising, so long as the writing stands, "Prove all
things, and hold fast that which is g