elements, not towards final causes, the greatness and
littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his short duration, the
curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of life, the
defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish,
the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the
corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the
whole race, so fearfully yet exactly described in the Apostle's
words, "having no hope and without God in the world,"--all this is a
vision to dizzy and appal; and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a
profound mystery, which is absolutely beyond human solution.

What shall be said to this heart-piercing, reason-bewildering fact? I
can only answer, that either there is no Creator, or this living
society of men is in a true sense discarded from His presence. Did I
see a boy of good make and mind, with the tokens on him of a refined
nature, cast upon the world without provision, unable to say whence
he came, his birthplace or his family connections, I should conclude
that there was some mystery connected with his history, and that he
was one, of whom, from one cause or other, his parents were ashamed.
Thus only should I be able to account for the contrast between the
promise and condition of his being. And so I argue about the
world;--_if_ there be a God, _since_ there is a God, the human race
is implicated in some terrible aboriginal calamity. It is out of
joint with the purposes of its Creator. This is a fact, a fact as
true as the fact of its existence; and thus the doctrine of what is
theologically called original sin becomes to me almost as certain as
that the world exists, and as the existence of God.

And now, supposing it were the blessed and loving will of the Creator
to interfere in this anarchical condition of things, what are we to
suppose would be the methods which might be necessarily or naturally
involved in His object of mercy? Since the world is in so abnormal a
state, surely it would be no surprise to me, if the interposition
were of necessity equally extraordinary--or what is called
miraculous. But that subject does not directly come into the scope of
my present remarks. Miracles as evidence, involve an argument; and of
course I am thinking of some means which does not immediately run
into argument. I am rather asking what must be the face-to-face
antagonist, by which to withstand and baffle the fierce energy of
passion