works, the Creator has endowed with faculties capable of discerning Himself, and offering up the thanksgivings of

creation.

ELEVENTH WEEK-SUNDAY.

THE UNCEASING AND UNIVERSAL PROVIDENCE OF GOD.

THERE are many associations connected with this season of the year, which lead the religious mind to look back on past events, as well as forward to the future, in reference to the operations of that Divine Being in whom we live and move. In contemplating these, we see a thousand things which, even to our diminutive understandings, appear to be insignificant, and a thousand more which seem to have hap pened contrary to reasonable expectations. Such considerations induce us to inquire, if it be indeed true that a God of infinite perfection presides over these events, and occupies Himself with the minute concerns of the little world we inhabit. The inquiry is at all times interesting.

It has already been remarked, that the perfections of the Godhead are manifested, not only in the large and magnificent scale of operations to which the view of the starry heav ens introduces us, but just as clearly and convincingly in the smaller, and, to our limited apprehensions, less important, arrangements of our terrestrial globe. Numerous evidences of this truth have come under our notice, in the compensations, adjustments, and contrivances, by which the general welfare of living beings is provided for, even in the bleak season of winter, and under circumstances apparently the most unfavourable.

Nor is it in created objects themselves alone, but in their daily history also, that the same character is to be perceived; for the God who made, continues to preserve His creatures; and the same Hand, which wheels the planets in their orbits, and orders and arranges their daily positions, and their mu

tual attractions, is as divinely occupied in preserving the various races of His terrestrial offspring, and in directing the daily occurrences by which their individual experience is distinguished.

That the Almighty watches over each of the beings He has made, and appoints its situation and its history, in all their varied vicissitudes, seems to follow from the fact, that He at first saw fit to create it; for, to imagine that God should have formed any creature, without having previously arranged the uses to which it should be put, the place it should occupy in the economy of creation, and the mode by which it should contribute to the advancement of his glory, is just to suppose Him such a one as ourselves,-ignorant and unsteady, fluctuating in his designs, and capricious in his conduct. Nor does the meanness of any of the creatures affect the question. The fact that it has been esteemed worthy to be made, establishes the other fact, that, so long as it exists, its movements and its history must be ordered and superintended by God; and that the least noticed and most ordinary occurrences connected with it, are under His control. It requires, for this minute care and superintendence, no greater condescension, than for its original formation; and, if it be granted that God is not degraded by the latter, it is inconsistent to imagine any degradation to attach to the former.

To every argument, therefore, used to support an opposite conclusion, it were enough to reply, that, as it is God's to create, so it is His to uphold; and, though to some of the creatures have been assigned a nobler place and a higher destiny than to others, the meanest, as well as the most exalted, must receive from God whatever care is necessary to enable them to fulfil the designs for which they were created. The seraph has his place assigned amid the glories of the celestial palace, where he is forever and ever hymning the praises of his Creator. The pebble of the brook, whether it lies perpetually unnoticed among the stones in which it was originally imbedded, or serves, in the hand of one under the Divine guidance, like that used by the stripling David, to smite an 26

VOL. IV.

enemy of God in the forehead, has been made, and has had its place assigned, by the same infinite Jehovah. Both are equally the property of God, and each, in its own allotted place, is equally well suited for the ends for which it was intended. Both, therefore, are under the care of God, and each will be so ordered and guided as to promote His eternal designs. That view of God's providence, which, affecting to place Him above the contemplation or the care of His creatures, however small or insignificant they may appear to us, divests Him of the glory attending the daily preservation of so many minute wonders, can only be adopted by one whose ideas of value are formed on the gross supposition, that bulk constitutes importance, and whose intellect is incapable of grasping the fact, that to the mind of God, whatever we can perceive of the vast and magnificent in creation, is but, after all, a point, requiring for its maintenance no greater trouble or care at His hands, than the little fly which dances in the sunbeam, or the inanimate clod which we tread beneath our feet.

From this doctrine may be deduced a sufficiently obvious, and no less important lesson,-a lesson of faith and dependence on that God by whom all things are arranged and governed. If even the tiniest insect is thus under His care, how much reason have we to feel satisfied that He will care for us. Such was the instruction deduced by our blessed Lord from the same subject:-' Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, that Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. If God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, 0 ye of little faith?'

The providential care manifested towards us by our Creator, is shown not only in the greater and more important events, but in every circumstance by which our lot is varied,

however minute, or however trivial ;-in the casual meeting of a friend, which seems to lead to nothing, as well as in the circumstances immediately connected with our birth, our conversation, our marriage, or our death. This will be the more readily granted, when it is perceived that the distinction between trifling and important events cannot be accurately made by us, and that those which would generally be classed among the former, are very frequently the fruitful parents of the most momentous occurrences.

We need not go far for an illustration of this subject. It is a point, for example, in undisputed history, that Mahommed, when pursued by his enemies, ere his religion had gained a footing in the world, took refuge in a certain cave. To the mouth of this retreat, his pursuers traced him; but when they were on the very point of entering, their attention was arrested by a little bird starting from an adjoining thicket. Had it not been for this circumstance, the most trivial that can well be conceived, which convinced them that there the fugitive could not be concealed, Mahommed would have been discovered, and he and his imposture must have perished together. As it was, he effected his escape, gained the protection of his friends, and, by the most artful course of conduct, succeeded in laying the foundation of a religion which now prevails over a large portion of the world, and numbers among its votaries the inhabitants of lands, neither insignificant in the map of the world, nor unimportant in their political relations. Thus, to the flight of a sparrow may be traced the establishment of a delusion whose moral influence has been deeply felt in the world for more than one millennium already, and which will probably continue to exert a baneful effect on the character of many a people, till the very eve of that blessed period, when the kingdoms of this world. shall become the kingdoms of the Lord, and of his Christ.

If an occurrence such as this has been so fruitful of events, to what circumstance shall we venture to give the name of trifling? Does not the history of every one of us testify to the influence of the very smallest and most unheeded of the

occurrences by which it has been marked? Has not the falling of a leaf, or the waving of a branch moved by the gentle breath of heaven, suggested a thought, or led to a resolution fraught with important consequences to our future lives? And who can tell the thousand, thousand links, minute and unremembered, that have every one been necessary, in its own place, to bring about the end which has at length occurred, the strange coincidents, the apparently accidental events, the meetings, the surprises, the conversations, the reflections, the very moods of mind which have entered into the composition of the final act, and which, had any one of them been different, even though that one had been the least noticed among the preparatory steps, must have led to a different result.

And, then, as to the importance of the chief events in the life of the humblest citizen, who can tell what an influence these may indirectly exercise over the happiness of his neighbourhood, or the fate of his country, or the destiny of the world? Had Hampden's spirit never been excited by the injustice of his rulers, who can tell what form of tyranny might now have been swaying the sceptre of our native land? and had Britain at that era slept on in her chains, instead of shaking off the yoke of her oppressors, who can say whether any nation in the world would at this moment have been free?

Thus constant, thus minute, is the providential care of God. As He is wise, let us look to Him for the ultimate adjustment of whatever appears to our short-sighted vision either distorted or unworthy of His character. As He is good, let us entertain the confidence, that they who serve Him in the gospel of his dear Son, shall be brought through all the vicissitudes of their earthly history, to the eternal mansions at last, and that, dark as the experience of his saints may be, He will cause all things to work together for their real good. G. J. C. D.