as these "men of science" count science. This is the sufficient answer to their pretension.

I have now done with all the leading infidel ob、 jections to the Christian doctrine of God's supreme all-ordering Providence in the universe of Matter and of Mind.

VII. But besides infidelities of denial, there are, on the other hand, superstitions of belief.

In regard to these, I can only say that to believe in the truth of God's all-ordering Providence, is one thing; to apply it to the interpretation of particular events, is another thing. Undoubtedly there are many rash, fanciful, erroneous, absurd, and fanatical interpretations made. Nothing, for instance, is more common than to construe special or extraordinary calamities, in certain cases, as Divine punishments. Thus, Job's friends explained the old chieftain's extraordinary afflictions as tokens of Divine retribution for secret sin.

But our Lord rebukes this sort of unauthorized interpretation: "Think ye those eighteen, on whom the tower of Siloam fell and slew them, were sinners above all that dwelt at Jerusalem? I tell

nay.”

you

Undoubtedly we do right in saying the tower of Siloam fell because it was badly built, or some na

tural cause had disturbed its gravity. It would, doubtless, have fallen precisely at the moment it fell, if there had been nobody beneath. Those eighteen were there at the time, and they were crushed in the fall. It was a remarkable coincidence. God's all-foreseeing, all-disposing Providence ordered it. No doubt of that. But Jesus says it was not because those men were enormous sinners. For aught that He says to the contrary, they may have been better men than the average of Jerusalem sinners. And their sinfulness, be it great or little, may have had nothing to do with their being under the tower at the moment it fell, and being crushed to death by its fall. So far as being sinful goes, all men would be obnoxious (as Jesus intimates) to some similar catastrophe. In this case, God ordered the event for good reasons, known to Himself. He has a perfect right to cut short human life in any way He may please, and it is not to be supposed as possible for Him to do injustice to His creatures in ordering the time or manner of their death.

God's Providence is a Providence of equal love. There is neither caprice, nor favoritism, nor hatred, nor dislike of individuals in it." He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and the unjust."

He lets the good man accommodate the bad man by exchanging passage-tickets with him. The bad man sails in the steamer of this week, and gets safely home; the good man sails in the next steamer, and is lost by the sinking of the ship.

The overturned railway-train crushes to death the meek, unselfish Sister of Charity, bound on a journey of mercy, while the hardened villain sitting close by, with his head full of schemes of crime, is spared.

What is the special Divine meaning in cases like this? Who but God can tell? We only know that equal wisdom, equal love, orders all.

While, therefore, we can not believe too strongly in God's all-ordering Providence, we can not be too careful in interpreting His special design. What we know not now, we shall know hereafter; at least, I think we shall. Meantime, we may rest assured that He orders the destiny of every one of His spiritual creatures, both in this world and in the world beyond, for their highest good.

VIII. But let us pass now to a brief consideration of God's Providential government in relation to humanity as a race, and to the universe as a whole-to the contemplation of God in history.

As to human history, its whole course, from the beginning, has been, is now, and ever will be, conducted by the Most High. Human history is not, indeed, like the world of space, the mere product of the Almighty will, nor the mere product of human activity alone. There is a human element in it, and there is an element that is Divine. But the infinite Ruler presides over the busy activities of human freedom through generations and ages; prepares the scene; calls the actors forth in their time and turn, and, through their action, carries onward from age to age the unfolding of some great Divine plan, which embraces Humanity as a whole. There is, doubtless, a Divine idea ever realizing itself in the historical life of Humanity, as truly as in the life of Nature—in the events of human history as in the phenomena of the material world. The mind and hand of the Almighty, as well as the mind and hand of man, have been in all the fates and fortunes of the nations; in the rise and fall of empires, the revolutions of dynasties, the wars and conquests, battles and sieges, negotiations and treaties, with which the pages of historical books are filled. Invisibly in and behind the visible procession of events, the Supreme Disposer has presided with a great purpose of His

own.

We must, however, remember that humanity is

destined to exist in a sphere beyond this world. The earthly history of the human race is not a complete drama in itself. It is one act only. When the curtain drops at the end of the world, it drops but to rise again for another act, on another and a vaster stage. Christianity announces, and the deepest instincts of the human reason and of the human heart point to a destination beyond this world.

The history of humanity, moreover, in its largest view, both in this world and in the world beyond, enters into another and more comprehensive history still, the history of the universe. Human history is but a part—it may be, must be, a small part of that grand Universe-drama which is to go on for ever unfolding in the round of eternal ages.

Over this unfolding, the Infinite Mind presides. Not without purpose does the Most High govern the universe; not for nothing; not for the mere sake of governing; not for the sake of any vainglorious self-display, making Himself the grand Self-Showman of the universe, as some then make Him out to be; but for some end worthy of an infinite, wise, and good God.

Doubt not, then, that the Universe-drama has its plan. It does not roll at random. Its great action is Divinely conducted in its eternal development.