BEIEF ESSAYS 229 



world is not accommodated to us, but vice versa. 

 There are no special acts of Providence that have 

 reference to you and to me, to this or to that event 

 of our lives, any more than the North Star was 

 placed there for the guidance of mariners, or that 

 anything in nature was made for the use of man. 

 Was water made to quench thirst ? No ; we have 

 thirst because there is water. Were the beauties 

 and harmonies of nature made to delight our senses 

 or for our edification 1 No ; we have the sense of 

 the beautiful because beauty exists. The beneficent 

 forces of nature brought us forth and sustain us, 

 therefore we love beneficence. The loving-kind- 

 ness and the tender mercies of God, of which we 

 hear so much, are such not because they are directed 

 to us, but because they are directed to all, — because 

 the laws of the universe are so, and not otherwise. 

 God answers prayer, not by a particular providence, 

 but by a general providence. You may light your 

 fire by focusing the sun's rays with a burning-glass; 

 but the rays are no different; they are the same as 

 those that are shot into space on all sides at all 

 times. Still, Providence is imminent in human 

 affairs, not by special acts, but by universal, eter- 

 nal, unceasing acts. Does it rain to make things 

 grow and to fill our wells and cisterns? We are 

 apt to take this view of things, but I noticed that 

 it rained at sea the same as upon the land. Men 

 and nations at war with each other, each seeking 

 to slay or overthrow the other, pray to the same 

 God for victory. And God helps one just as much 



