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hidden, but we know it exists, and the thought is a firm support 
for our faith. Besides, though we cannot see the object, and, 
when asked to explain it, we are compelled to avow our ignorance, 
we must remember that it is but natural with a being limited, 
fallible, who can see in his brief passage over the surface of the 
earth but a small part of God’s design. How can we — mere 
creatures of a day — presume to complain, because we are unable 
to comprehend the designs of a Being who is infinite and eternal ? 
It was once said by an old dramatist of the sixteenth century 
to a sceptic who denied providential action , — “ Would you 
pronounce judgment on the plot of a drama of which you had 
only seen one act ? And because in that act the innocent is 
punished, would you accuse the author of having forgotten 
justice? Wait a little and see the next act. When the 
criminal is overtaken by the punishment he has deserved, you 
will say that the apparent discord is turned into harmony. 
Do you not see that we are but children ? Who could pronounce 
judgment on the drama of the ages from a single scene ? ” 
The old playwright said truly ; God plays a drama the acts 
of which are centuries. He in whose eyes a thousand years 
are as one day is patient because He is eternal. 
Or, to take another illustration, would you ask a soldier whose 
place was amid the thickest of the fight, to explain his general’s 
plan? What need for him to understand it? He sees but the 
thundering charge, the flashing arms, the clouds of smoke and 
dust ; he hears but the shouts, and cries, mingled with the 
deafening roar of musketry and the deep boom of cannon. For 
him all seems disorder and confusion, but on a neighbouring 
height, an eye is following the progress of the action, a watchful 
brain is directing the movements of each battalion. And is 
there not a battle going on amid the centuries — that of truth, 
love, and justice, against error, egotism, and iniquity ? and it is 
not for us obscure private soldiers in the melee , to presume 
to explain the plan of the action : enough that God is directing 
it. We have to remain at the post He assigns to us, and to 
struggle firmly to the end. There is a scene recorded in the 
Old Testament which may illustrate the divine plan as carried 
out amid the confusion of history. 
When Solomon built the Temple on the hill of Zion, we were 
told that all the materials for the construction of this enormous 
edifice were prepared far from Jerusalem, that the sound of the 
workmen’s tools might not break the silence of the sacred 
city; and thus for a long period, scattered in Judsean valleys, or 
on the heights of Lebanon, the woodcutter felled the trees, the 
workman carved the stone, none knew the plan of the great 
Architect, each had the order to complete his own task, till the 
