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
birth-place or his family connexions, 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 the 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 purpose 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 a process of reason, or an argument; and of course I
am thinking of some mode of interference 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 energ