#411 - "I Don't Know!"

“I Don't Know!”

  It was one of those delightful autumn days and the Westchester Presbytery was enjoying its noon recess. Several candidates had been examined for ordination, among them young Stanley Phraner, son of one of our best-known and best-loved ministers. In answer to several questions about future affairs I noticed that he answered firmly, “I do not know.” We took a little stroll along the country road that passed the church, and I asked him why he had made that answer, “I do not know.” He said:
  “That is a lesson I learned at sea. I will tell you the whole story.
  “One summer when a college student at Princeton, I thought I would vary my vacation by taking a trip as a sailor. The invitation of a sea captain, known to our family, offered the opportunity. I started from New York on a three-masted schooner bound for the island of Porto Rico. Being good at figures, the captain asked me to do his navigation for him. He gave me a chart, an almanac, a book of logarithms, and a quadrant. He showed me how to use these things, and this was the formula by which I was always to work:
  “'Secant your latitude, co-secant your polar distance, take the co-sine of one-half the sum and the sine of the remainder.'
  “So day after day, under the watchful eye of the captain, I calculated the ship's position. The captain was always careful to note that the rule had been followed exactly. So one day I asked him:
  “Captain, why do you secant your latitude?”
  “I don't know!” said the captain bluntly.
  “Well, can you tell my why you co-secant your polar distance?”
  “I don't know! Except—except—well, that's the rule. Young man, you want to know too much. Do as I tell you, follow the rule, all sailors use it. Trust your book of logarithms and you will make port all right.”
  “So day by day I put down the position on the chart. On the fourteenth day out I went to the captain and ventured my first forecast.
  “'To-night if the wind holds fair,' I said, 'we ought to make the Saul Rock passage into the Caribbean Sea.' That night I watched eagerly, and sure enough about eleven o'clock we sighted the great white rock looming up in the ocean, and the next day we entered the harbor of Mayaguez. Along the shore giant palms waved their lofty plumes in the soft breeze. Beyond, we could see the groves of orange and banana trees and all the tropical verdure of the island, while from bluff to bluff of the headlands on either shore of the harbor arose a mighty rainbow arch, which, reflected on the sea beneath, formed a circle of wondrous light into which we slowly drifted that Sabbath evening as we came to anchor in the harbor of our destination. The rule was right, and by it we made port. When I got back to Princeton I was able to study out some of the reasons why of the rule that could not be explained at sea, but had to be followed in simple trust.”
  In the school of the sea this Princeton student had learned to say “I don't know!” It is a lesson in the faith-life worth learning. How many queries rise in our Christian thinking and living when we ought just to set to our seal that God is true and that His promises are sure.
  Why did the holy angels fall from heaven?
  “I don't know!”
  How was it sin entered Eden?
  “I don't know!”
  Why is it some wicked people seem to prosper while some very good people suffer?
  “I don't know!”
  How can one reconcile man's free will and God's sovereignty?
  “I don't know!”
  For the present I can get along without knowing some of these things, for I walk by faith and not by sight. We seek a better country, we are still at sea. We have not yet reached the home port—God's haven of eternal rest. Our book is the Bible, God's own word. The Gospel rule is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” When at last we enter the City of Light we may learn many a reason why that cannot be given now. “For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”--John S. Allen, D. D.


Illustrative Anecdotes for Preachers, Sunday School Teachers, and the Family Circle. Henry M. Tyndall. 1925. #411 (Pages 220-221).