Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ni. We now come to the third general division of our theme, that God not only can effectively interfere, either by direct or indirect methods, without working any disorder, abrogating any law, or destroying any force; and that he not only has, in fact, thus interfered again and again in all ages and in countless matters of moment, but, further, that it is not only not presumptuous, but most natural and reasonable, for us to expect that he will interfere for us individually, however insignificant we may at present seem to be. It is claimed by those who controvert this position, that God has, as we have already remarked, adopted broad, comprehensive plans, in which he has regard to general interests, and not to exceptional cases; that in these plans he is as unyielding as granite ; that his interferences have been in the nature of creative fiats, simply for completing these wide-reaching original designs ; that he has no time or thought for individual cases; and that, if any one of us would secure any of the benefits of the present order, we must make these plans a careful study, and adjust ourselves to themas best we can, and not expect their author to break in upon them and give his personal attention to our private, insignificant interests. In other words, we must rely on our own exertions for any modifications of our environments, must master the secrets of nature, comply with her laws, if we would make her forces our servitors and become masters of our circumstances. There is apparent warrant for such a view. It would seem as if the individual were indeed lost sight of,— everything is on so vast a scale, every part of this wonderful mechanism of a world is so far-reaching in its results. The earth's whirl on its axis brings day and night for all; the inclination of its ax... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.