60 
Thus do these modern Epicureans reason, and the language 1 
have quoted is not that of professed atheists, hut of many honest 
people who are proud of the name of Christians. In fact, there 
are but few of us who have not occasionally been troubled by 
such thoughts as these. "Which of us has not at some time or 
other asked himself, “ Is it possible the attention of the Most 
High can be directed to me? What is man that Thou art 
mindful of him ? " How often has not the magnificent spectacle 
of the world inspired us with a vague feeling of terror, when we 
contrast its infinite grandeur with our own nothingness? 
Can it be true, we say, that in this immensity of creation, in 
which our globe is as a speck of dust, that in this little ant-hill 
we call our world, among these millions who each minute are 
born and die, each has its mission, its part to play, its account 
to give ? Is it true that our race has the importance we our- 
selves attribute to it, and that God can condescend to notice 
the innumerable incidents which chequer our little life with 
light and shade ? Is my prayer heard, — are my wants known 
of God? 
Another thing which effaces from the minds of many the idea 
of God's intervention in the world's affairs is its present con- 
dition, to which Christians say it has been reduced by sin, and from 
which we believe it will finally emerge by the destruction of sin. 
How difficult is it to discover any trace of a Providential plan 
in history ? 
How can we see any design amid the dark confusion of 
events ? How can we find the key to the moral problems they 
raise? What mean so many miserable failures ; what was the 
purpose served by so many vanished civilizations? 
It is no doubt easy enough for a man of optimist temperament 
to explain all these things superficially, and write a philosophy 
of history in a few chapters, and declare he sees clearly through 
that which to others is a darkness that may be felt ; but all 
cannot thus easily console themselves, — all cannot hail as rising 
day-stars the ignes fatui of imagination. For them the history 
of humanity, with its gigantic crimes, the ceaseless sufferings 
of millions of beings who, far beyond our bounded ken, pursue 
their mysterious destiny, — all this is a dark problem which 
troubles them, and often makes their heart to bleed. It may 
be said all these troubles belong only to cultivated minds. I 
do not think so. I believe that beneath another form they 
harass and perplex the most ignorant and rude. Can we not 
epitomise in each existence the questions which torment us in 
the history of nations? Triumphant injustice ! successful fraud! 
seemingly useless suffering! unforeseen strokes of death! are 
these not questions which, in the dark and solemn hour of our 
