ntense disposition for art will
conquer the most formidable obstacles, if the surrounding circumstances
are such as at all to present the idea of such conquest to the mind; but
we have no ground for concluding that Giotto would ever have been more
than a shepherd, if Cimabue had not by chance found him drawing; or that
among the shepherds of the Apennines there were no other Giottos,
undiscovered by Cimabue. We are too much in the habit of considering
happy accidents as what are called 'special Providences'; and thinking
that when any great work needs to be done, the man who is to do it will
certainly be pointed out by Providence, be he shepherd or seaboy; and
prepared for his work by all kinds of minor providences, in the best
possible way. Whereas all the analogies of God's operations in other
matters prove the contrary of this; we find that "of thousand seeds, He
often brings but one to bear," often not one; and the one seed which He
appoints to bear is allowed to bear crude or perfect fruit according to
the dealings of the husbandman with it. And there cannot be a doubt in
the mind of any person accustomed to take broad and logical views of the
world's history, that its events are ruled by Providence in precisely
the same manner as its harvests; that the seeds of good and evil are
broadcast among men, just as the seeds of thistles and fruits are; and
that according to the force of our industry, and wisdom of our
husbandry, the ground will bring forth to us figs or thistles. So that
when it seems needed that a certain work should be done for the world,
and no man is there to do it, we have no right to say that God did not
wish it to be done; and therefore sent no men able to do it. The
probability (if I wrote my own convictions, I should say certainty) is,
that He sent many men, hundreds of men, able to do it; and that we have
rejected them, or crushed them; by our previous folly of conduct or of
institution, we have rendered it impossible to distinguish, or
impossible to reach them; and when the need for them comes, and we
suffer for the want of them, it is not that God refuses to send us
deliverers, and specially appoints all our consequent sufferings; but
that He has sent, and we have refused, the deliverers; and the pain is
then wrought out by His eternal law, as surely as famine is wrought out
by eternal law for a nation which will neither plough nor sow. No less
are we in error in supposing, as we so frequently d