BRIEF ESSAYS 231 



we take shelter under, — the ways of Providence are 

 past finding out; but that is begging the question. 

 You presume to know them and to have found 

 them out when you say He chose to throw the train 

 on the upper side of the track instead of on the 

 lower. No, He is not that kind of a God. The 

 only way He interferes or takes a hand in is through 

 the eternal laws which He has established. In 

 this case the laws of force, the laws of resistance 

 and of matter, were the hand of God that threw the 

 train against the bank; had the forces clashed a 

 little diflferently, the train would have gone into the 

 river. No miracle was performed to prevent it. 

 A good engineer could tell you exactly how it hap- 

 pened. And yet the feeling to thank God in such 

 a case is a natural one and a worthy one; it pro- 

 ceeds from a true religious attitude of the soul. 



The balance, the adjustment, the equipoise which 

 we see in the physical world, and which we see in 

 the world of man, too, was not brought about by 

 any guidance or principle of action that bears the 

 slightest resemblance to human methods and aims, 

 but is the result of eons upon eons of conflict, of 

 clashing, of waste and destruction, the fittest or the 

 luckiest surviving. "What principle of benevolence, 

 or of justice, or of wise foresight has regulated the 

 distribution of the various human races upon the 

 globe, or determined the relative ascendency of the 

 various nationalities ? Just the principle that deter- 

 mines which of a hungry, pack of dogs shall get and 

 keep the bone you toss them. Think of the wrongs, 



