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Stretch forth thine hand from above; rescue me out of the hand of strangers. This is but saying, "I do not know those who trouble me, but I do know thee."

I. ALL AROUND US IS THE UNKNOWN.

1. There is so little that we can understand. Spite of all the attainments of science, the "known" today bears no comparison at all to the "unknown." The philosopher has but scooped up in his shell a little of the water of the great ocean of truth. The mute a man knows, the more he feels how little he knows. We need not be philosophers, and argue that man never does know more than phenomena, the accidents of things; it is enough to see that, concerning almost everything, a child can ask questions which the wisest man cannot answer.

2. There is so much that never comes into the field of human thought at all. For we have no right to say that the laws which we apprehend as controlling the movements of nature are the only laws that control them. We are constantly baffled by intimations of the working of laws of which we know nothing at all.

3. And the human experience through which we have to pass is hopelessly unknown to us. Known to no man are his coming positions, relations, friends, or foes. Every day every man has to say to himself, "I have not gone this way heretofore." It just has to be accepted as the fact for every life, "We are of yesterday, and know nothing."

II. UP ABOVE US IS THE KNOWN. In a recent exhibition there was a very touching picture of an old farm-laborer, dressed in his smock-frock, and with a lined, wearied face that told of a long life of troubles, but over the seams and lines seemed to spread a soul-smile as, looking away through the clouds, he said, "Up beyond is the blue sky." It may be thus with every man. For the mind there is no rest; there is nothing but a fretful worrying with the surrounding unknown. But for the soul there is rest. It does not look around; it looks up, and knows God - knows as love can know, knows as trust can know. And that is the only satisfying knowledge. A man can only be an agnostic till his soul finds God; then he knows as souls only can know. - R.T.

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KJV: Send thine hand from above; rid me, and deliver me out of great waters, from the hand of strange children;

WEB: Stretch out your hand from above, rescue me, and deliver me out of great waters, out of the hands of foreigners;