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There is a great diversity of opinion as to the character of the age in which we live. If one set of critics is to be credited, our world is rushing to perdition at an alarming pace. Other observers are sanguine and hopeful Considering that stir and activity are preferable to stagnation and torpor, these persons see much that is really encouraging in the conflict of opinion, and are inclined to expect the birth of a new and brighter era out of the throes of the period through which we are passing. Our day is one in which men emphatically "make haste." In the passage to which the text belongs, a contrast seems to be drawn between those persons who construct some refuge of their own to protect them from the ills of life, and those others who are willing to avail themselves of that well-built and well-founded house which the Lord God hath provided for them; and then the dismay and disappointment of the one party, when their expectations are found to deceive them, are contrasted with the calm security and confidence of the other. But, we will take up, from the surface of the text, this idea — that if a man believes in God, and trusts in God, and will consent to work on the lines which God has laid down, he will be saved from that restless, worldly agitation of mind which produces so frequently such calamitous results. Let us notice, in one or two particulars, how this desirable state of things will be brought about.

I. AS TO TEMPORAL MATTERS. I have been told, that as business life is constituted now, it is impossible for a man, if he would "hold his own," to act in entire accordance with the dictates of an enlightened conscience; that competition is so keen and risks so great, and the area of labour so crowded, that a man cannot make his footing good without resorting, at least in some matters, to tricks, and evasions, and subterfuges, and misrepresentations, which shock his moral sense, and which he cannot, without much difficulty, persuade himself at first to practise. Now why do men maintain that it is an impossible thing to obey conscience in matters of business! The root lies here — in the want of full belief in God. If I believed that God went partners with the devil in the management of the world, then it would be quite consistent for me to try to appease Satan by acknowledging his co-ordinate authority, and falling in with his ways. But if I believed that God was the Ruler of the universe, — that He was continually working and continually upholding the right, — I should be saved from these sad and painful deviations from the path of rectitude; because I should be perfectly satisfied, that he who did the right, at whatever cost, and left the matter in God's hands, would be sure to be borne harmless in the end. Much of the feverish restlessness of the present day arises from a real, but unavowed and perhaps unconscious distrust of the results of honest, conscientious work. The idea is too frequently entertained, that merely to work does not answer; and that work must be supplemented and made successful by something else. This feeling is, in its root, distrust of God.

II. We turn, now, to SPIRITUAL MATTERS. I know that, at a time like this, there must be discussion amongst young men on points affecting the very foundation of our holy religion. But I am not inclined to make the circumstance a subject of unmixed lamentation. "Easily gotten; soon parted with," — applies to religion as well as to other things. At the same time, I dread that discussion which never seems to get beyond discussion. The purpose for which we are placed in the world is not that we should be forever asking questions, and raising and solving doubts, — but that we should be living a life. But how can that be accomplished, unless we have fixed principles to start from? Do I wish to be a geometrician? I shall make very little progress if I am perpetually employed in discussing and settling, in arranging and rearranging my axioms and definitions. And how am I to be advancing with that life which is to be the seed plot of my eternity, if I go on, month after month, year after year, unable to settle anything? Contrast with this vacillation and incertitude the condition of the man who "believeth." When a strain comes upon him, he has not to run helplessly hither and thither, seeking for principles to sustain him in the hour of trial. He has got his principles, and they are ready for use. In other words, he believes in the living God, and therefore he does not "make haste."

III. THE MAN WHO BELIEVES IN A LIVING GOD WILL NOT BE FULL OF NERVOUS APPREHENSIONS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF CHRISTIANITY. Men may break themselves to pieces against the Rock of Ages, but the Rock itself will never move.

(G. Calthrop, M. A.)

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KJV: Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.

WEB: Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh, "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation. He who believes shall not act hastily.