f
mankind as a whole and of each human being. The assurance is rested in
God's infinite love and wisdom, the love pure mercy, the wisdom giving
love its ways and means. It is further grounded in an interpretation of
the universe as a spiritual-natural world, an interpretation fully set
forth in the earlier book, _Divine Love and Wisdom_, on which the present
work draws heavily. As there is a world of the spirit, no view of
providence can be adequate which does not take that world into account.
For in that world must be channels for the outreach of God's care to the
human spirit. There also any eternal goal--such as a heaven from the human
race--must exist. A view of providence limited to the horizons of the
passing existence can hardly resemble the care which the eternal God
takes of men and women who, besides possessing perishable bodies, are
themselves creatures of the spirit and immortal. The full title of the
book, _Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence_, implies that its author,
in an other-world experience, had at hand the knowledge which men and
women in heaven have of God's care. Who should know the divine guidance
if not the men and women in heaven who have obviously enjoyed it? "The
laws of divine providence, hitherto hidden with angels in their wisdom,
are to be revealed now" (n. 70).

As it is presented in this book, providence seeks to engage man in its
purposes, and to enlist all his faculties, his freedom and reason, his
will and understanding, his prudence and enterprise. It acts first of all
on his volitions and thinking, to align them with itself. That it falls
directly on history, its events and our circumstances, is a superficial
view. It is man's inner life which first feels the omnipresent divine
influence and must do so. If we cannot be lifted to our best selves and
if our aims and outlook cannot be modified for the better, how shall the
world be bettered which we affect to handle? Paramount in God's presence
with all men, if only in their possibilities, is His providential care.

This care, to which man's inner life is open, is alert every moment, not
occasional. It is gentle and not tyrannical, constantly respecting man's
freedom and reason, otherwise losing him as a human being. It has set
this and other laws for itself which it pursues undeviatingly. The larger
part of the book is an exposition of these laws in the conviction that by
them the nature of providence is best seen. Is it not to be