The inspired volume has been placed in your hand and laid open before your eyes; and for what think you? Is it to mock or to tantalize you by presenting before you what was never intended for you? Ah! No; such is not God’s way. Does He send His sunlight and showers to mock and to tantalize, or to gladden and refresh? Do you ever think of calling in question your own very personal welcome to study the book of Creation? Never; and yet there might be some show of foundation of such a question, inasmuch as, since that wondrous volume was thrown open, sin has entered and thrown its dark blots over the pages thereof.

But, in spite of sin and all its forms and all its consequences, in spite of Satan’s power and malice, God has spoken. He has caused His voice to be heard in this dark and sinful world. And what has He said? “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation.” This is something entirely new. It is as though our blessed, loving, and ever gracious God had said to us, “Here, I have begun on the new. I have laid a foundation, on the ground of redemption, which nothing can ever touch, neither sin, nor Satan, nor aught else. I lay the foundation, and pledge My word that whosoever believes, whosoever commits himself, in childlike, unquestioning confidence, to My foundation, whosoever rests in My Christ, whosoever is satisfied with My precious, tried, chief cornerstone, shall never, no, never, no, never be confounded, never be put to shame, never be disappointed, shall never perish.”