English
One reason why such misfortunes disturb our general reasoning more than they ought, is, that we overlook the abundant affluence of the Divine scheme, in which even human beings are scattered almost like seeds floating from the thistle ; and, again, another reason is, that we expect the ideal or the best conceivable shape of things to be evcrywliere realised in performance ; whereas, the sculptor labours much with his mar- ble, and makes many rude essays, before he accomplishes his highest work ; and so in the great striving of things upward, there must be many shortcomings before the whole body can be stamped with the glory which the Spirit would impress upon it. But in no case anywhere do we observe such a shortcoming of the Divine providence, as that anything of which we can posi- tively say it is important, perishes out of the world without working some good, or leaving some seed of itself behind it. You may say that whole species of animals have perished ; but I answer, never any species which was largely useful to others, or which was capable of falling in with the new conditions which the great training of the world upward from time to time re- quired. We see wild and savage races both of beasts and men 214 GENERAL PROVIDENCE. dallj tend to extinction. But why do they so? Clearly because they are either pernicious or useless, and unfit to be tamed; though, in earlier stages of the Divine plan, they may have been competent enough to enjoy a happiness after their kind, and to fill a place not yet prepared for better things. But, as a general rule, no noble or remarkable species perishes. Certainly, none fails, for want of the Divine bounty contributing largely to its sustentation. Suppose, for example, all males had been bom in one part of the world, and all females in another, which is a result that on principles of chance might have come about. Then, indeed, we might have desiderated the Divine forethought. Whereas, in fact, like is bom to suit like in all parts of the world. Nor is it less true of the nobler correspondencies of the mind, than of those of a more animal sort. When thoughts take 80 strongly hold of a man, that the expression of them becomes necessary to his mental peace, he generally finds, if he has courage by fiiith to make the experiment, that many other minds have been teeming with a growth sufficiently similar for him not to fail of finding sympathy. So ample is the embrace of the Divine forethought and instruction which encompasses us, although unseen. Or even if a man appear to speak so prema- turely, that he sufiers for it, yet, if his words are trae, they do not die barren, but take root in corresponding minds and bear firuit abundantly. Thus the tears and blood of the witnesses for tmth become the cement of a nobler society in the time to come. The man himself, if he is a teacher of truth, will be the last to regret his own sufferings, for they will be abundantly overpaid to him by the consciousness that he is a fellow-worker with God his Father in building up a better world. But again, are we not apt to overlook, how much of such shortcoming as seems to exist in the world arises from our neglect of the part allotted us in the drama? For we, my firiend, may rightly be called fellow-workers with Grod; and this the more evidently in pro- portion as any one believes us to be either akin to the Deity, or as the A'chdrya says, ourselves emanations from Him. But if we JOINT WORKING OP MAN. 216 were intended both to take cognisance of each other's wants, and to relieve them, as being all children of one Father, it is very evident that a forgetfulness of this holy brotherhood of mankind, and an attempt to straggle on in selfish isolation, or in the pride of caste, must leave the wants of many without that aid which God intended for them, and in turn deprive us, who reftise the aid, of much sympathy and inward joy. I believe, indeed, it is a matter of world-long experience that whoever labours in the way I have suggested to aid his fellow-men, as trusting that it is part of the Divine plan for him to do so, becomes thereby less and less apt to complain of the world as being imperfect; for he finds such a satisfaction in doing good, that his eyes are opened thereby to behold more good existing than he would otherwise have thought probable. Indeed, I venture to say, the complaints of suffering in the world do not generally proceed from men who actively relieve what suffering there is, but from indolent dreamers. This is an assertion of sufEcient importance for it to be well worth your while either to verify or refute it by close observation. For you see how much it involves. K the case be as I state it, then God is justified of His own ways to the good, though not to the evil. " By such thoughts, I conceive, we are led on more and more to a lively apprehension of the personality of God. However grand all that Veddnta speculation may sound, about abstract thought, and joy, we, being led on to a conception of the Deity as one who justifies Himself to the affections, are led to conceive of Him as one whom we can trust; and such a one is a living agent, or what is commonly termed a Being with personality. Observe then how far I am obliged to break away from my venerable friend the Achdrya. All that he has said about V&ch, as the voice of God creating, and about M^yfi,, as being the representation of the Divine thought by nature, appeared to me not only grand but credible, so far as it traces the visible world justly to creative Mind. But, when he speaks of Brahm becom- ing Brahmd, I don't understand how mere potentiality could 216 DIVINE WILL SELF-CONSCIOUS. ever become person, except so far as his theogony is a lively picture of the progress of the human mind in speculation. We may, in our attempts to grope backwards towards a beginning, figure to ourselves a time when God had not yet created ; when, therefore, it may be said, the Creator was not ; and the relative conception our flesh-bound minds are apt to form of a Deity in such a pre- dicament, is that of something potential, or capable of thereafter coming forth. But then to think for a moment that the Deity must have been in that way, because our conception may be so speculatively fashioned, is to me an astounding childishness, put out in a guise of wisdom. Even the representation of Brahm, or mere spirit, as the object of worship, does not appear to satisfy the conditions which our heart and mind require. For mere spirit, if you take away from it personality, or ruling unity of consciousness, becomes as truly a mere power or agency, as fire, or steam, or electricity, though it may be a more wonderful agency than any one of them. Yet still it is just as little a ruling agent as they are. How then can we pray to it ? We have lost the Father, the Governor, and the Judge, all of which attributes characterised our God, and we have got instead a dumb abstraction, only better than an idol, so far as the pictures of the mind may be somewhat higher than those of the senses. Now if there remain any difficulties in the world, either from suffering, or from exceptional shortcoming of design, I can no longer trust in such an abstraction, that either there are good reasons for such difficulties, or that they will be cleared up here- after. Whereas, if the Ved^nta philosophers had not, in their over-subtle fondness for abstraction, taken away the unity of consciousness and will, which denote personality, from the supreme Being, I should have been able to bring faith to the aid of my reasoning. Knowing some things, we can take some on trust, so long as there is a God to trust in ; but if you leave me only a mental abstraction, it becomes almost doubtful whether I shall oscillate in the direction of the Veddnta, which says that spirit is everything, or that of the Sdnlchya, which says tliat vedXntine spirit and letteb. 217 nature does everything, or in that of the Ch6xv&cas, who make man a vegetable. " Again, there is something curious in what was said about V&ch passing into Mdyd, or about the world being made out of the thought of Brahmd. If, indeed, this were only a parable, (as perhaps it may have been,) to represent that thought must underlie nature, or that the world must have been created by wisdom, then I should perfectly agree ; but then true doctrine might as well be stated in plainer terms.