wherever they appear, like the moral blindness of the heathen, "without excuse."

How plastic and impressible is childhood made to external influences; in whose brief period of necessarily unripe ideas and imperfect aims and efforts, at the best, all questions of personal character, industry, skill, power, efficiency, and usefulness in after life must be irreversibly determined. When we realize that the children of mankind, at large, are, each and all, his, both in fact and at heart, and only loaned in every case to their parents, to be trained for him, and that the highest degree of love possible on their part is not, compared with his, even as a drop to the ocean:how strange seems it, that he resigns, on so large a scale, the casting of the die of their precious destiny to such unworthy hands. What lasting damage, and what immitigable sorrow, are drunken husbands and fathers allowed to entail upon their innocent, suffering, praying households. How do the victims of vice and crime wound society, even more than themselves. Men of passion and violence tear ruthlessly in pieces the cherished hopes and happiness of the good; and weak and wicked rulers often impose upon their weary subjects tasks and burdens, utterly abhorrent not only to them but also to God. Thus fearfully is one man often in the power of another, who, purposely or negligently, crushes all the better instincts of his nature, breaks off wantonly all the budding hopes of his being, and tramples the germs of immortal joy and honor in his nature into utter ruin under his feet. In the general order of social relations, influences, and sequences,-skilfully established for the world's good, and sure to eventuate largely in it, both in general and in detail, if only each one of the great whole acts rightly his allotted part, God" visits the iniquities of fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation, but shows mercy unto thousands of those that love him and keep his commandments." It is wonderful that a system of perpetuated covenant blessings, so wide-reaching in its scope, and so energetic in its action, should, when perverted by human.

misconduct, narrow-in its force for evil through all the forms and laws of personal inheritance of blood and bone, of home-education, and of the power of personal example and influence, from "thousands of generations," as it is to those who love God, to the contracted limits of "the third and fourth generation of those that hate him."

So, too, what immense injury has God suffered to be inflicted on society, in all ages and countries, by mistaken theories of religious truth, of social order, of governmental policy, and of individual duty. Conscientious visionaries, bigots, and fools have turned the world everywhere upside down. What an outflow and overflow of evils in all the earth would a little more logic or even good common sense have often saved to mankind.

§ 4. He has allowed vast negations of easily discoverable and attainable good to all preceding generations.

The ignorance and destitution of men in former days, in respect alike to matters of personal comfort and of social progress and prosperity, he suffered, with seemingly unheeding indifference, to remain undisturbed. The very word invent teaches us that mankind have, thus far, stumbled upon their forms of individual and social improvement; so, the word discover implies that a treasure which, though in plain view, had before remained untouched, had now, for the first time, revealed its riches to him who had lifted up its cover. Nature held forth to men thousands of years ago the same bounties and beauties, with open fulness of bestowment, so many of which have just been seized by the eager hand of science or of art. But how as a savage walks unconsciously over a mine of gold, or though staring upon a printed page, full of words of light and love, sees naught but blank confusion there have those of former days died unblessed, amid an abundance of the elements of human improvement and enjoyment surrounding them, and lying in near, delightful prospect to them, which yet they never touched, because never for a moment comprehending that they had any relation to their possibilities of better

action, growth, and usefulness. There is indeed a grand philosophical unity in the conception of the progressive development of the human mind, by the laws of its own self-active growth, in clearness of perception, force of reasoning, strength of purpose, objectiveness of aim, and elevation of sentiment, from absolute original ignorance and inexperience to the highest attainable excellence of the church and state combined, in the end; but at what a fearful sacrifice of the means of personal and social advancement has the weary march of the ages hitherto been allowed to move so tardily, and with such slow and small accumulations of gain in all upward directions. When we think of the ease with which the divine hand could, at any time, point the eyes of men towards the before concealed treasures of his goodness, lovingly prepared by himself ages ago for their use, and set purposely at ready points of access before them; or, how easily he could burst the light seals that held their contents out of human sight,- how strange, and even perchance unresolvable, seem to us the deliberate negations of his permissive providence, and the inactive reserve of his infinite good-will to the race; the indulgence of which, on the broadest scale possible, is so manifest in the magnificent preparations of his providence for the ultimate perfectibility of the human species.

§ 5. He allows very great inequalities of condition in human experience. Some are born poor and others rich; some weak and others strong; some under the most kindly parental influence, and some to be driven about by misfortunes, like dry leaves before autumn winds, from the first hour of life to the last, with no helper but that divine Father whom they have never been taught to love or to seek or even to know. Who can guess what shall become of his children, however well provided for now, or of his property or his good name after he has left the land of the living? Who can foresee what withering blast may suddenly, at any moment, like a simoom of the desert, dry up every green thing in his outward estate of good, or what overwhelming

ruin of all things else may unexpectedly leave him alone with himself and his God. The eventful history of others will make any thoughtful observer of it serious, although by grace serene, and modest in all his earthly expectations, however earnest in following them for the glory of God.

Secondly, The final end of God's providence, whether decretory or permissive, is, to promote the greatest good of the greatest number of his intelligent creatures.

The arithmetic of love in God's bosom is the arithmetic of the entire moral universe. His nature is no more unbounded than his heart: "his tender mercies are over all his works." From the very infinitude of his being, he can be satisfied with nothing partial or incomplete. Our natures aspire, in proportion as they are lofty in their bearing, to great generalizations of conception, and to grand, all-embracing sentiments and purposes of life; and so, not only the divine intuitions, but also the divine sensibilities and affections, turn, full-orbed and mighty in their action, towards all the works of his hands.

The great, manifest drift of God's providence, as well as all its secret undertow, is, in general, towards the vindication of universal justice; while, in particular, it flows full and strong towards each individual upon earth, in an almost unrestrained tide of mercy.

1st. The individual is never slighted or forgotten amid the magnificence of his thoughts or plans.

It is the glory of science, art, and administrative talent among men, to seize, combine, and use the minutest details with effect for great ends. To God nothing is great, since it came directly and wholly from his own hand; and to him, for the same reason, is nothing small. He acts for and upon each individual man, in order to promote his highest good, upon the following scale of principles:

§ 1. According to the mental, moral, and even physical elements of each one's separate personality, as well as according to the outward and social circumstances of his VOL. XXI. No. 83.

77

earthly lot. Infinite adaptation and art does God employ in all his moral workmanship.

§2. So as, if unresisted, much more welcomed, to lead him, even amid the dim light of nature, directly and powerfully along the line of his largest development in the spirit of duty, and of true, courageous, persistent, buoyant faith in God. Wherever "day unto day utters speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge," in all the earth, "the invisible things of God are clearly seen, even his eternal power and Godhead," so that even the unrepentant heathen are "without excuse." The normal effect of God's providential treatment of each one, amid the blessings of Christianity, is the creation in his heart of a positive, eager, and continually intensified desire for spiritual attainments and pleasures. Thus "the goodness of God" ever legitimately "leadeth to repentance," or a new life; and "all things work together for good to those that love God."

§ 3. So as to bestow himself, in ever larger measures of joyous beneficence, upon each one, as his chosen friend and ally forever. The end of God's providence, as of creation itself, is the direct and full education of each one of his moral creatures for his own everlasting companionship.

2d. In all seeming outward change God himself is ever the same immutable being, in his elements of feeling and principles of action.

He is accordingly equally immutable in the maintenance and management of his great, unvarying, and, because absolutely perfect, invariable plan of all things. With him, "there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning "—which does not mean that his outward forms of demonstration and action towards his creatures are unvarying. The very immutability of his character necessitates ever-changing modes of treating them, according to the changes of their conduct. The same father that smiles upon his obedient child, frowns upon him, if of a right and true character himself, when he is disobedient. God is ever gloriously the same good, wise, perfect, all-loving, infinite being. Whatever he has been at