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at is immediately before our eyes, and glance at the annals of the world, we behold so many manifestations of God, that we may adduce as a sixth proof of Providence the facts of history. The giving and transmission of a revelation, as the Mosaic and the Christian--the raising up of Prophets, Apostles and Defenders of the Faith--the ordination of particular events, such as the Reformation--the more remarkable deliverance noticed in the lives of those devoted to the good of the world, etc., all indicate the wise and benevolent care of God over the human family. But the historical proof of a Providence is perhaps strongest where the wrath of man has been made to praise God, or where efforts to dishonor God have been constrained to do him honor. Testimony in favor of piety has fallen from the impious, and has had a double volume, as coming from the unwilling. They who have fought against the truth have been used by God as instruments of spreading the knowledge of it, awakening an interest in it, or stimulating Christians to purify it from human additions, and to exhibit its power. The scientific researches also with which infidels have wearied themselves to overthrow a revelation have proved at last fatal to their daring scepticisms. Too many histories, like Gibbons', have been written as if there were no God in the heavens, swaying the sceptre of the earth. But a better day is approaching; and it is exhilarating to observe that Alison, the first British historian of the age, writes in the spirit which breathes in the historical books of the Bible, where the free actions of man are represented as inseparably connected with the agency of God. If we may judge of the future by the past, as the scroll of time unrolls, we, or our posterity, and some think glorified spirits in a yet higher degree, shall see more and more plainly the hand of God operating, till every knee shall bow. Judgments, now a great deep, shall become as the light that goeth forth. The tides of ambition and avarice will all be seen to roll in subserviency to the designs of God. To borrow the illustration of another, "we shall behold the bow of God encircling the darkest storms of wickedness, and forcing them to manifest His glory to the universe." As a seventh ground for believing in Providence, it may be said that Providence is the necessary basis of all religion. For what is religion? One of the best definitions calls it the belief in a super-human power
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