he return of
nature to her order. It was well, they said, that such things did not
happen often, or they could not fail to give rise to some superstitious
notions as to some law of causation between ignorant fanaticism and the
sublimest phenomena of the universe.

I asked my visitor how it fared with the many who have objected to the
clearness and force of prophecy, and who have not scrupled to assert,
that, if prophecies had been given, they would have been given in such
a shape as would have made their claims more plain, and their fulfilment
more incontrovertible. "Were there none who relied on this mode of
demonstrating the reality of a divine revelation, and manifesting their
claims to be regarded as an embassy from heaven?"

"Many," he replied, "so many that it were tedious to detail them. But
you are quite mistaken if you suppose it possible that even God can
employ any moral methods which man cannot evade; how much less the
fools who think they can improve upon his! The wisdom of God," said he,
with a melancholy smile, "is no match for the ingenuity of man. As to
your present question, you know there have been persons who have
continually complained in your world that prophecy is so obscure that
the event cannot be certainly known to have been referred to by it, or
else so plain that, ipso facto, it proves that the prediction must have
been composed after the event. Now it was precisely in attempting the
juste milieu between these extremes that our prophetical speculators
wrecked themselves. Men always had it to say that their prophecies had
been either too plain or too obscure; or, if very plain, and yet as
plainly written before the event, that their very plainness had insured
their own accomplishment by prompting to the very actions and conduct
they so clearly indicated!"

"I can easily conceive that," I answered. "But now for another problem.
Not a few of our older infidels complained of the revelation in the Bible
on the score that the maxims of conduct which it delivers are too general
to be of any use, because the application of them is still left to be
adjusted by a reference to particular circumstances; and that, if a
revelation were framed, it ought to take in all the limitations of action,
and furnish, in fact, a complete system of casuistry; otherwise it would
be of no avail. Were there none who attempted this task?"

"Five-and-twenty men," he answered, "who were destined to be a torment
to one an