THE page of History is but the record of Providence, the unfolding of the plans of God. He who reads history bearing this truth in mind, possesses a talismanic key which unlocks many a secret door, around which merely philosophic fingers have vainly wandered. The rise and fall of empires, those grand events which have rent the world and made the nations quake, are but the development to human view of God's eternal purpose. The Earth is a mighty theatre: its scenes are painted by the hand of God, in the light of his own knowledge, and concealed from the eye of man behind the curtain of futurity. As the dim drapery is drawn aside, the breathless audience start, amazed at the magnificence of each recurring view, and wonder what will next present itself in the great drama. Yet there was nothing new or strange in all these scenes to the great Artist who had painted them. God looks with infinite composure on the events which his own hand brings to pass, "while now an atom falls and now a world."

Our conceptions of such wisdom and power must ever be inadequate, yet there is wonderful sublimity even in the human idea of a Being whose plans embrace alike the fall of a kingdom on the earth, and the motion of an atom in the farthest star. In the mind of such a Being the idea of great must often be associated with an event termed small by us, and what we call great is often trivial with Him. To man, an event is sometimes great, because it is near and startling; with the Most High the greatness of an event is measured by its bearing on his eternal plan. A blazing meteor at midnight awakens admiration, because we see it amid surrounding darkness, but to a being lifted far above the earth it would seem like a dying taper, for he would measure it with the sun. This truth might receive a thousand illustrations, the most striking one which ever occurred we are familiar with. When a Redeemer was to be ushered into the world, God pacified the warring nations to receive him, and to the Babel roar of conflict which had scarce

ly paused since Adam fell, he said, "Be still!" When he was born, Heaven came to Earth to welcome Him with "a seven-fold chorus of symphonies and harping hallelujahs." When he died, God robed the sun in mourning and wrapped the rent earth in darkness. And yet to man, these were unnoticed eras. So unnoticed, that in the whole Roman world there seems to have been only one solitary soldier to smite upon his breast and say verily, this was the Son of God !"

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This is not strange; the horizon of our vision is narrow, and we can only judge of events in their most palpable relations, and so we often miscall things trivial or momentous. Two events occur which in appearance are exactly similar, whose issues may be so diverse, that one shall become the whirpool which engulfs a nation, and the other but a bubble in the vortex. A common infant differs not from a cradled Bonaparte. Both are objects of equal care; across the partial eye of the fond mothers flit visions of equal glory, and both are alike unregarded by the great world. Yet one lives to become a mere follower of the other, while that other introduces a new era in the world's history. There sleeps an infant Emperor; in that cradle there is an embryo Austerlitz and Waterloo, and the fate of a hundred millions such as sleep in the cradle by his side, hang on that infant's destiny. To the world that infant's birth was an unnoticed era, but to the Most High it was as momentous as the memorable conflict when Napoleon rose and fell.

Of all the lessons which History inculcates, not one is more impressive than this. That it is the prerogative of Deity to connect results of vast moment with causes of the most ordinary kind. It might be said of almost any nation, that could a second Tishbite be placed upon the Carmel of its history, he would often foretel the storm destined to overwhelm it from the sight of a cloud no bigger than a man's hand. How often did Rome illustrate this lesson of Providence! There is a camp at Ardea, and in a certain tent four youthful soldiers sit at play-a jest occurs, and that jest issues in the loss of a monarch's throne, and frees Rome from the tyranny of kings during five hundred years. Again, a fair maiden walks the streets of Rome, and the glance of a Decemvir's eye lights on her face. That glance changes the government of Rome a second time. And to pass by other instances, who needs to be reminded that but for the cackling of a goose, the wonder and admiration of the world might never have been awakened by the history of the eternal city? Who looks at Ireland now, beautiful Ireland, blasted in her hopes, and bending under the weight of seven centuries of woe, and remembers how slight a circumstance led to it all? A rude chieftain casts an eye of love on a beautiful woman, the wife of another chieftain rude as himself. Whether with her consent or not, history does not inform us, but he bears her off from her husband's halls to grace his own, and receives the praises of a gallant deed in an age as barbarous as that of Helen, and in a nation where such exploits were not unfrequent. A fierce feud arises; the ravisher is expelled and the might of England is invoked to aid his unholy cause. The historian tells us that " by a few trivial exploits, scarcely

worth relating, except for the importance of the consequences, was Ireland subdued and annexed to the English crown." He might have added, and thus a form of frail beauty became the sad cause which led to the subjugation of a gallant people, and has involved in untold wretchedness the households of a nation for twenty generations. How little did that uncouth barbarian think that a glance of his eye on the fair queen of Ororick would be more disastrous to his nation, than if a pestilence had depopulated half the island! How little did the beautiful Dovergilda know that her flight commenced such a fatal era in her country's history! An infidel historian could not be expected to mark this unnoticed era as an inscrutable dispensation of Providence, the design of which, wise though it doubtless was, cannot even yet be fully comprehended; yet such it was. It is the misfortune of the world that two of its greatest historical works have been written by sceptics. The design of history is not merely to state facts, nor is it in connection with the narrative of events only to suggest lessons of practical wisdom. It has, when viewed aright, a still higher design. It ought to acknowledge a Sovereign Ruler over men; it ought to recognize His governmental plan; and as that plan is steadily carried on amid the changing events of earth, the historian ought to mark its development and trace results below up to their source in Heaven. A sceptic, a disbeliever in revelation, lacks a primal requisite to a complete historian. He is about as competent to write history as a man would be to explain the phenomena of the solar system who was ignorant of the law of gravitation; or to instruct us in the motions of a watch, when he was not aware that it had a main-spring.

It is well to mark the course of Providence, for though we may not always understand it, we may yet learn wisdom from it. When we behold such slight causes followed by issues so permanent and sometimes so disastrous, how obvious is the reflection that means are neither great nor feeble in themselves, but great or feeble according to the power of the being who makes use of them. The armor of the giant Saul cannot help the stripling David, but Sampson with the jaw of an ass will slay a thousand men. How different are instrumentalities in the hands of God and man! Some potent monarch undertakes an enterprise of vast magnitude, and in its projection displays a perfect congruity of means and end. He gathers from all sides resources for the issue, brings the wealth and strength of nations under contribution, and makes the earth shake beneath the tread of his armed hosts. To human view he seems about to accomplish his purpose with the certainty of destiny. But what is the end of it all? See Xerxes fleeing across the Hellespont in a little boat, and Napoleon, baffled at Moscow, returning to Paris in a private carriage. How differently God uses instrumentality! He brings no armies to battle; no legions of angels gather to war for him; but as if in mockery of human strength, at the blast of a ram's horn, the walls of a proud city fall, and the countless hosts of Midian and Amelek fly at the breaking of an empty pitcher. When such a thought as this impresses us, we feel with John Foster, that "it is a humble thing to be a man." Struck with the impotence of human

energy, we retreat into our own insignificance, that we may contemplate in silence the wonder-working of a God.

To be thus impressed with striking marks of divine interposition, is not difficult. We naturally regard them with such feelings. A prominent epoch, a great crisis, always arouses attention; but how often do we forget a circumstance, apparently trivial, on which the existence of that crisis hung. Who can contemplate without a shudder, the battle between Western Europe and the Saracens, when Charles Martel met the Moslem host, three hundred thousand strong? It was perhaps the most momentous battle ever fought. Europe looks on with giddy interest while for seven long days such tremendous results are pending; and when the trumpet of Charles Martel bids the world to hope, Christendom from her deep bosom heaves a long breath of infinite relief.* That is an era which we mark. Yet there was an unmarked era which occurred a century before, upon whose humble issue depended the very existence of this mighty conflict. Mohammed had just begun his career. Opposed with deadly animosity, he fled, and with his remorseless foes upon his track, took refuge with Abu Beker in a solitary cave. Terrified at the impending danger, his adherent in trembling accents said, "We are but two." No," answered the dauntless prophet, with heroic courage worthy of a holier cause, "there is another-it is God himself." And Mohammed answered well, for God was there to work out by him prophetic issues. But mark the mode. Over the mouth of that cave a spider is weaving his web. Unmarked, unconscious, humble instrument of Heaven, he is silently weaving the web of destiny. His work is done; and as the wind shakes its tremulous fibres, a band of horsemen come to that cave's mouth. They mark the unbroken strands of that attenuated fabric-pass on-and that rescued Arab comes forth to complete a system which has changed the course of empire, made monarchs topple from their thrones, and now after the lapse of twelve hundred years, controls the temporal and eternal weal of more than one hundred and forty millions of human beings. Thus in the hand of the Sovereign Ruler, shall "a spider's most attenuated thread" become a strong link in the adamantine chain of destiny. This was an unnoticed era, yet one more worthy of commemoration than the Hegira. History would furnish many another, and doubtless many an one unwritten by the pen of man is in the record book on high. Who can estimate the influence of a single thought on the destiny of

* A curious chapter might be written upon the consequences which would have resulted had the issue of this battle been different. But sometimes a single phrase will serve the same purpose as a labored description, as when Scott in Ivanhoe so admirably gives us a complete picture of the condition of the lower orders of the Saxon population in the days of John, by the brief description of Gurth, around whose neck a collar was fastened, on which was inscribed, "Gurth the son of Beowulph is the born thrall of Cedric of Rotherhood." We may be allowed in humble imitation to remark, that had the Moslems conquered, the Koran would have been our Bible, Oxford might now be propagating Islamism instead of Puseyism, and "we should have been wearing turbans instead of hats, and combed our beards instead of shaving them."

a human being! and who shall tell what strange developments may be made hereafter, when many a man may find that one thought marked an era in his life unnoticed by himself! that so far as any subsequent act tended to change his final state, it may with truth be said, that then the last line was written in his book of fate, and the volume closed for ever. Yes! a thought may be a soul's Rubicon, and sometimes it may be a nation's. One only illustration of this last remark, and we have done. Ere Rome was yet a century old, and when her power was only felt by a few border tribes, there was war between the infant state and Alba. We need not relate the story of the three fraternal champions, so familiar to all, but may be pardoned for speaking of the vast stake at issue, and on what that issue turned. While the two armies look on with breathless interest, two of the Romans fall, and there is a momentary pause, while the third one meditates whether to stand or fly. Upon that thought what interests are pending! A world is held in equilibrium there! Now could there by an act of anticipated creation, be brought as spectators into one vast amphitheatre, all who were to be affected by that day's results, what intense emotion would be shown by that stupendous gathering! Hannibal and Scipio would be gazing down, for Cannæ and Zama are in embryo there-Cæsar and Pompey, for there Pharsalia is to be decided-Anthony and Augustus, for Actium is at issue there-Theodoric and Attila, for on that arena the carnage of Chalons is foreshadowed. The thought is over, and the Roman flies; and as he turns again and strikes down his pursuers one by one, methinks could the future find a voice, we might hear from that world of anticipated being the muttered groan of the future vanquished, and from the multitude of victors the plaudit shout like the sound of mighty thunderings, " Roman, well done! thou art a mightier conqueror than we."

R. A.

NOVEL READING.

Of all the questions which have ever come under human observation, undoubtedly the most obscure in their nature and the most difficult of decision, are those which relate to the faculties and phenomena of the mind. In most other departments of learning the results are known with far greater precision and often beyond a doubt. In the abstract relations of numbers, for instance, the deductions and conclusions are certain and incontrovertible. In the physical sciences too, observation and experiment have reduced many of the laws and properties of matter to mathematical certainty and decision. Even that part of mental philosophy termed ethics, which treats of morals and political economy, is capable of much more decisive proof than the intellectual part, which considers the powers, faculties, and affections of the mind; and to which last our subject in a great measure belongs. Could we as