THE UNITY OF NATURE. 279 



Providence, which is not blind, but sees, and which 

 governs the world in patriarchal fashion. The anthro- 

 pomorphic character of this notion, generally closely 

 connected with belief in a personal God, is quite 

 obvious. Belief in a " loving Father," who unceasingly 

 guides the destinies of 1,500,000,000 men on our 

 planet, and is attentive at all times to their millions 

 of contradictory prayers and pious wishes, is abso- 

 lutely impossible ; that is at once perceived on laying 

 aside tne coloured spectacles of " faith " and reflecting 

 rationally on the subject. 



As a rule, this belief in Providence and the tutelage 

 of a '' loving Father" is more intense in the modern 

 civilised man — just as in the uncultured savage — 

 when some good fortune has befallen him : an escape 

 from peril of life, recovery from a severe illness, the 

 winning of the first prize in a lottery, the birth of a 

 long-delayed child, and so forth. When, on the other 

 hand, a misfortune is met with, or an ardent wish 

 is not fulfilled, "Providence" is forgotten. The 

 wise ruler of the world slumbered — or refused his 

 blessing. 



In the extraordinary development of commerce of 

 the nineteenth century the number of catastrophes 

 and accidents has necessarily increased beyond all 

 imagination ; of that the journal is a daily witness. 

 Thousands are killed every year by shipwreck, 

 railway accidents, mine accidents, etc. Thousands 

 slay each other every year in war, and the prepara- 

 tion for this wholesale massacre absorbs much 

 the greater part of the revenue in the highest civilised 

 nations, the chief professors of " Christian charity." 

 And among these hundreds of thousands of annual 

 victims of modern civilisation strong, industrious, 



