on is
popularly known in France as the _Chariot of David_.

CHAPTER XV.

GOD'S GOVERNMENT--KING STANISLAUS--THE DAUPHIN SON OF LOUIS XV.--THE
SHORTEST ROAD--NEW YEAR'S DAY--A MIRACLE--CLEVER ANIMALS--THE
CALENDAR--MR. JULIUS CAESAR AND POPE GREGORY XIII.--HOW THE DAY AFTER
THE 4TH OF OCTOBER WAS THE 15TH--OLYMPIAD--LUSTRES--THE HEGIRA--A
HORSE MADE CONSUL--JACK'S DREAM.

Some men, when they regard the sinister side of events, are apt to
call in question the axiom, Nothing is accomplished without the will
of God. Why, they ask, do the wicked triumph? Why are the just
oppressed? Why this evil? What is the use of that disaster? Was it
necessary that Mary Wolston should be thrown into the sea, and that
she should afterwards die in consequence of the accident?

To these questions we reply, that God does not interrupt the ordinary
course of His works. Man is a free agent in so far as regards his own
actions; were it otherwise, we should not be responsible for our own
crimes. We might as well plunge into vice as adhere to virtue; for we
could not be called upon to expiate the one, nor could we hope to be
rewarded for the other. It is not to be expected that God is to
perform miracles at every instant for our individual benefit. It is
unreasonable in us to suppose that, in obedience to our wishes or
desires, He will alter His immutable laws.

A foot slips on the brink of a precipice, and we are dashed to atoms.
Our boat is upset in a squall, and we are drowned. Like Stanislaus
Leszinsky, King of Poland, we fall asleep in the corner of a chimney,
our clothes take fire, and we are burned to death. We go a hunting; we
mistake a grey overcoat for the fur of a deer, and we kill our friend
or his gamekeeper, as once happened to the son of Louis XV., who in
consequence almost died of grief, and renounced forever a sport of
which he was passionately fond. Did Providence will, exact, or
pre-ordain all these calamities? Certainly not; but our Creator has
seen fit to tolerate and permit them, since he did not interpose to
prevent them.

The government of God is a conception so wonderful, so sublime, that
none but Himself can fathom its depths. Human intelligence is too
finite to penetrate or comprehend a system so complex, and yet so
uniform. The mind of man can only form a just idea of a cause when the
effect has been made manifest to his understanding. There might have
been a reason for the death of Mary Wolston--who kno