The failure of wisdom.
Edom, the country of Job, the haunt of ancient lore, is to find that her learning and science will prove no safeguard against the deluge of destruction that is about to burst over the nations. The disaster which fell upon ancient "wise men" of the East may be a warning to the higher intelligences of all ages. The failure of wisdom is twofold—negative and positive.
I. NEGATIVE; THERE ARE EVILS WITH WHICH WISDOM CANNOT COPE.
1. Physical. Science can do much to avoid troubles into which ignorance falls, to mitigate inevitable disasters, and to devise means of escape from those which are already present. Sanitary science will help to prevent disease, and medical science to cure it. Military science will put a country in a certain state of security; economical science will check dangers of poverty. But how many of the worst things in life are beyond the power of science! The philosopher cannot arrest the hand of the invader. The most terrible diseases are the most fatal. Men have long since given up the vain search for the elixir of life. Science is powerless before death.
2. Moral. Still less can science "minister to the mind diseased" What consolation is a knowledge of the processes of a malady to the mourner, the light of whose eyes is darkened forever by its fatal work? What comfort can science whisper to the widow and the orphan? The great burden of the world's sorrow, and the weariness of the unceasing cares of life, it does not so much as touch. The deeper evil of sin flows in a foul, black stream, unchecked by science. The mission of science is great and glorious, and we should be profoundly thankful that we live in an age when its bright torch confers many a boon and relieves many a trouble. But we must not ignore the fact that the greatest ills that flesh is heir to are just those which it cannot cure.
II. POSITIVE: THERE ARE EVILS WHICH WISDOM INVOKES UPON ITS OWN HEAD. Knowledge is good and Divine, and in itself a blessing of the first order. Yet it brings a snare, and the abuse of it terrible disasters.
1. The knowledge of inevitable evil only increases distress. "Where ignorance is bliss," etc.
2. Superior wisdom may engender pride. Hence arises a false sense of security which only increases danger. The wise man is slow to tread those lowly paths which lead to true rest. It is difficult for him to become as a little child, that he may enter into the kingdom of heaven.
3. Wisdom may come to be trusted to for help that it cannot afford. Men make an idol of science, as though it were a new evangel. The ultimate disappointment must correspond to the grossness of the delusion. We must learn, therefore, while avoiding a foolish depreciation of science and philosophy, to look still for our safety and blessedness to that higher wisdom of God, that gospel of the Crucified, which is still to some as foolishness.