THE NATURAL PROVIDENCE 



are determined by irrefragable laws. The contra- 

 dictions in such statements are obvious and are in- 

 evitable when the finite tries to measure or describe 

 the ways of the Infinite. 



The waters of the globe are forever seeking the 

 repose of a dead level, but when they attain it, if 

 they ever do, the world will be dead. Behold what a 

 career they have in their circuit from the sea to the 

 clouds and back to the earth in the ministering 

 rains, and then to the sea again through the streams 

 and rivers! The mantling snow with its exquisite 

 crystals, the grinding and transporting glaciers, the 

 placid or plowing and turbulent rivers, the spark- 

 ling and refreshing streams, the cooling and renew- 

 ing dews, the softening and protecting vapors, wait 

 upon this circuit of the waters through the agency 

 of the sun, from the sea, through the sky and land, 

 back to the sea again. Yes, and all the myriad forms 

 of life also. This circuit of the waters drives and sus- 

 tains all the vital machinery of the globe. 



Why and how the sun and the rain bring the 

 rose and the violet, the peach and the plum, the 

 wheat and the rye, and the boys and the girls, out 

 of the same elements and conditions that they 

 bring the thistles and the tares, the thorn and the 

 scrub, the fang and the sting, the monkey and the 

 reptile, is the insoluble mystery. 



If Nature aspires toward what we call the good in 

 man, does she not equally aspire toward what we 



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