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pain and anguish, ask for a solution from all ? From the 
patriot who thinks he sees the cause of justice fall for ever when 
his own blood-stained banner is trampled in the dust, to the 
workman who, in the bitterness of his heart, says, “ If there is 
a God he is the God of the rich man,” is there any situation 
in which from time to time we are not tempted to ask, what is 
the action of God on the world and on our own life ? If, as I 
said, Fatalism was the prevalent belief of antiquity, it is in a 
scarcely less practical sense the faith of our own times. Some 
adore it blindly, others curse it in useless revolt ; but over all, 
whether openly avowed or secretly felt, it exercises a sinister 
and baneful influence. Even when under the sharp stroke of 
sorrow or the acute sense of injustice, man bends the knee to 
it, and foolishly repeats the words of Asaph, “ How doth God 
know ? is there knowledge in the Most High ? ” Now to deal 
with these objections in succession, first as to the sceptic’s 
arguments in favour of necessity to be inferred from the in- 
flexibility of Nature’s laws. The Christian escapes the difficulty 
by belief in a living God who is above the laws he has made. 
True, we see no more miracles ; the physical world in which we 
live is governed by fixed and unyielding natural laws, which, 
if we resist, crush us beneath their awful power. 
Why should it not be so ? God is a God of order. He has 
attested more than once that He is Nature’s master. But can 
He be expected to change the mighty order of His works, to 
interrupt the marvellous concatenation of cause and effect to 
satisfy wishes, that, if so easily gratified, would too soon 
degenerate into caprices? He could, no doubt, grant each 
prayer, intervene in every event of life, to punish or to bless. 
But what result would follow ? All would serve him by self- 
interest or fear ; for punishment or reward would immediately 
follow each action. There would, in such a dispensation, be no 
place for love, and God would neither be served by mercenaries 
nor slaves ; He wills that man, as a moral agent, should w r alk 
by faith, not by sight. He hides Himself from sight, to reveal 
Himself to faith. Sight shows us those general laws according 
to which His sun rises on just and on unjust alike, the laws by 
which Nature pursues her changeless course; but faith unveils 
to us, amid this general connection of cause and effect, the 
delicate operation of His all-watchful care in the existence of 
each individual, by which He knows all our thoughts, and by 
which no sigh of ours is hid from Him. Judging by sight, all 
is fated and predestined, or the result of chance, — the same 
accidents, the same griefs happen to all alike; but judging by 
faith, there is in each existence a plan, by virtue of which all 
that seems accidental and fortuitous, irremediably fixed, serves 
