is not from Him, as assuredly it is not,
this is because evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect,
excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance. All we see,
hear, and touch, the remote sidereal firmament, as well as our own sea and
land, and the elements which compose them, and the ordinances they obey,
are His. The primary atoms of matter, their properties, their mutual
action, their disposition and collocation, electricity, magnetism,
gravitation, light, and whatever other subtle principles or operations the
wit of man is detecting or shall detect, are the work of His hands. From
Him has been every movement which has convulsed and re-fashioned the
surface of the earth. The most insignificant or unsightly insect is from
Him, and good in its kind; the ever-teeming, inexhaustible swarms of
animalculae, the myriads of living motes invisible to the naked eye, the
restless ever-spreading vegetation which creeps like a garment over the
whole earth, the lofty cedar, the umbrageous banana, are His. His are the
tribes and families of birds and beasts, their graceful forms, their wild
gestures, and their passionate cries.

And so in the intellectual, moral, social, and political world. Man, with
his motives and works, his languages, his propagation, his diffusion, is
from Him. Agriculture, medicine, and the arts of life, are His gifts.
Society, laws, government, He is their sanction. The pageant of earthly
royalty has the semblance and the benediction of the Eternal King. Peace
and civilization, commerce and adventure, wars when just, conquest when
humane and necessary, have His co-operation, and His blessing upon them.
The course of events, the revolution of empires, the rise and fall of
states, the periods and eras, the progresses and the retrogressions of the
world's history, not indeed the incidental sin, over-abundant as it is,
but the great outlines and the results of human affairs, are from His
disposition. The elements and types and seminal principles and
constructive powers of the moral world, in ruins though it be, are to be
referred to Him. He "enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world."
His are the dictates of the moral sense, and the retributive reproaches of
conscience. To Him must be ascribed the rich endowments of the intellect,
the irradiation of genius, the imagination of the poet, the sagacity of
the politician, the wisdom (as Scripture calls it), which now rears and
d