There is in natural philosophy what is called the hydrostatic paradox, which consists in the fact that a small quantity of any liquid--as, for example, the coffee in the nose of the coffee-pot--will balance and sustain a very much larger quantity--as that contained in the body of it--so as to keep the surface of each at the same level.

Young students involve themselves sometimes in hopeless entanglements among the steps of the mathematical demonstration showing how this can be, but no housekeeper ever meets with any practical difficulty in making her coffee rest quietly in its place on account of it.

The Christian paradox, in the same way, gives rise to a great deal of metaphysical floundering and bewilderment among young theologians in their attempts to vindicate and explain it, but the humble-minded Christian parent finds no difficulty in practice.

It comes very easy to him to do all he can, just as if every thing depended upon his efforts, and at the same time to cast all his care upon God, just as if there was nothing at all that he himself could do.
_Means must be Right Means_.
4.

We are apt to imagine--or, at least, to act sometimes as if we imagined--that our dependence upon the Divine aid for what our Saviour, Jesus, designated as the new birth, makes some difference in the obligation on our part to employ such means as are naturally adapted to the end in view.