THE SUPERNATURAL. 21 



to believe that after the same manner also the 

 Divine Will, of which ours is the image only, 

 works and effects its purposes ? 



Our own experience shows that the universal 

 Reign of Law is perfectly consistent with a power 

 of making those laws subservient to design — even 

 when the knowledge of them is but slight, and 



« 



the power over them slighter still. How much 

 more easy, how much more natural, to conceive 

 that the same universality is compatible with the 

 exercise of that Supreme Will before which all 

 are known, and to which all are servants ! What 

 difficulty in this view remains in the idea of the 

 Supernatural? Is it any other than the difficulty 

 in believing in the existence of a Supreme Will 

 — in a living God ? If this be the belief of which 

 M. Guizot speaks when he says that it is essen- 

 tial to religion, then his proposition is unquestion- 

 ably true. In this sense the difficulty of believ- 

 ing in the Supernatural, and the difficulty of 

 believing in pure Theism, is one and the same. 

 But if he means that it is necessary to Reli- 

 gion to believe in even the occasional "violation 

 of law," — if he means that without such belief* 



