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nite, and some of the relations of which only are made manifest to us, corresponding with the part which we are at different moments called to perform, and with the powers that belong to us for the perception or use of the relations which we disOther beings, gifted with different powers, would see other relations in the very same succession that strikes us in a manner suited to our peculiar exigencies and powers of perception ;and to a mind that had a much more comprehensive glance than our own,-the whole would assume the aspect, not of a mass of insulated occurrences,- -but of a widely-concatenated,—and continually-varying evolution,—no portion of which is without an essential relation to the entire fabric of which it is a part.

The particular aspect under which we are in the habit of considering individual occurrences,-that, namely, of their being mutually causes and effects of each other, is but an artifice of which the human mind avails itself,-suited to its limited powers of contemplation, and fitted for enabling it to think and to speak with more facility of the relations of events. But I am persuaded that the other mode of conception, that, namely, which disposes us to

consider all occurrences, whether in external nature or in our own internal world, as developments of particular portions of one vast,-intimately-connected, -and continually-varying whole,-developments of which every individual mind enjoys its own share, corresponding with its peculiar powers, and with the purposes which it has been raised into being to serve,-is at once more just,-more pleasing,—and fitted to give us a more comprehensive view of the actual arrangements of the universe.

But in whichever of these modes we choose to consider the order of nature, there are events occasionally occurring to every man, which have a tendency to make him aware of the fine and beautiful connexion in which all the parts,-even the most apparently remote and uninfluential of the parts,— of the series are held together. There is thus, perhaps, no reflecting man who has not had frequent occasion, in looking back upon life, to perceive to what apparently insignificant events the most important results of his own history can sometimes be traced. -Occurrences that at the moment seemed to have come without any warning,-to have happened as if nothing farther were to spring from their influence, —and to which, now that they are past, we look back

with wonder that events of such magnitude should have seemed to be suspended on so slight a connexion,—can, however, be distinctly perceived to have given origin,—at least in so far as our partial modes of thought allow us to judge,-to events that are to have an influence on the whole of our future history;-for had these circumstances not occurred, the whole future manifestation would, in so far as we can perceive, have been materially changed;and God seems thus, in such moments of retrospective thought, to be making us sensible how far our notions of what is great and what is little in the order of his providence are often at variance with the fact; and, in short, what reason we have to conclude that the whole of our history,—and, indeed, the vast order of universal nature, is one wonderfully-adjusted and intimately-connected scheme, since apparent accidents have thus, in some very remarkable particulars, discovered to us this connexion even between portions of the plan, that would, but for the actual disclosures which have been made, have seemed to hold the least probable relation to each other.

This is, in fact, the true lesson to be learned from such occurrences. It is not simply that Providence

sometimes makes great issues to depend on apparently slight and remote causes ;-but that the connexion between these distant,-and apparently disunited events has occasionally revealed itself as an intimation that the connexion is universal and essential between all the successive and all the contemporaneous portions of the great order of nature; -and that it is not any interruptions in the connexion itself, but simply our limited powers of perception, that prevent us from discovering the relation to be of universal efficacy.

We have at present chiefly spoken of the relation between the different portions of our individual lives, --but it must be taken into account that the connexion is equally strict between our internal world, and that external order which cannot be conceived as subsisting without each other;-and, farther, that the connexion extends in unbroken intimacy, and with ceaseless evolutions, to the whole of the arrangements that pervade creation,—and to all the future developments which its boundless wonders are to undergo.

It may only be proper again to remark, that this mode of viewing the order of nature,-not so much under the artificial ideas of a series of causes and

effects, but rather as a series of varying evolutions of the intimate relations of things,-evolutions varied according to the different powers of the countless individuals to whom the evolution is made, and according to the progressive needs of the same individual at different parts of his career,-is well worthy of being made familiar to our minds by being brought frequently before their view. It offers a pleasing idea of the constitution of that order amidst which our course of mortal existence is run,—and has a tendency to enlarge immeasurably our conceptions of the grandeur and fine connexion of the arrangements which pervade the immense plan of Providence.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF HUMAN ACTIONS INVARI

ABLY CORRESPOND WITH THE CHARACTER OF THESE ACTIONS;-THAT IS TO SAY,-GOOD ACTIONS PRODUCE GOOD CONSEQUENCES, AND BAD ACTIONS BAD CONSEQUENCES.

It is true, that here also the limitation of our view gives the same uncertainty and perplexity to our judgments respecting the consequences of our actions, which we formerly noticed respecting the