THE HAPPY WARRIOR.

285

circumstances there is the True Shepherd, who will gather His own into the true fold. If we tend not even these, there may be none other who may tend them. What, too, would be the greatest without the work of the humblest?

Although I may already have carried quotation beyond its due limits, I will venture to sum up these remarks by using Wordsworth's poem of the "Happy Warrior," for which we might almost read the "Christian Warrior,”—a character how superior to the celebrated conception of the courageous man in heathen ethics! In the English poet the ethical is easily translated into the religious meaning:

"Who, doomed to go in company with Pain
And Fear and Bloodshed-miserable train !—
Turns his necessity to glorious gain.

In face of these doth exercise a power

Which is our human nature's highest dower;
Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves
Of their bad influence, and their good receives;

Whose powers shed round him, in the common strife,
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,

A constant influence, a peculiar grace;

But who, if he be called upon to face

Some awful moment, to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,

Is happy as a lover, and attired

With sudden brightness, as a man inspired;

And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;

Or, if an unexpected call succeed,

Come when it will, is equal to the need ;—

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THE HAPPY WARRIOR.

He who, though thus endued as with a sense
And faculty for storm and turbulence,

Is yet a soul whose master-bias leans

To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes,-
Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,
Are at his heart; and such fidelity

It is his darling passion to approve;

More brave for this, that he hath much to love:-
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,

Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpass'd:

Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth;
Or he must fall to sleep without his fame,
And leave a dead, unprofitable name,
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause."

CHAPTER VIII.

PROVIDENCE IN HISTORY AND LIFE.

THE question of Providence in human history and life is undoubtedly one of the highest importance, and of the greatest difficulty and perplexity. Different series of observation, and different lines of reasoning, would lead us to opposite conclusions. The poet Claudian, in an often-quoted passage, has spoken of the doubt which, to men circumstanced as he was, must be constantly recurring: whether the world was indeed under the moral government of God. We know, also, that these doubts weighed on the mind of the Psalmist, and were too hard for him until he went into the sanctuary of God. From that sanctuary we,

any degree we would un

too, must desire help, if in ravel the tangled problems which beset this great inquiry. It is not at all uncommon for Christians to suffer from that perturbation of feeling which afflicted the Psalmist before he had attained to a better mind on the subject. It was a saying of Melancthon's, that many persons look upon God's method towards the world as the conduct of the shipwright towards the vessel, who, when he has launched it upon the deep,

288 DIFFICULTIES OF THE DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE.

has no further concern with it. This disheartening feeling of perplexity attends us in reading history, or in watching events. Cecil said that Providence was a greater mystery than religion. "A reflecting Christian sees more to excite his astonishment and to exercise his faith in the state of things between Temple Bar and St. Paul's than in what he reads from Genesis to Revelation." But here, again, as on so many great questions, while speculation can only retire baffled and disappointed, the clear, final language of revelation sets the question at rest. To the humble believer in Divine Writ, the authoritative language of Scripture is ample and express. We may be unable to work a problem, and may give it up in despair; but when the answer to the problem is placed before us, the difficulties often clear away, and the ease and beauty of the steps in the solution are discerned. So it is when we take the words of Scripture in connection with the facts of life. Taken by themselves, those facts appear shapeless and contradictory; but they are easily reduced into order and consistency when we have the clue which guides us through the labyrinth.

May we not feel that we are only employing a popular and inaccurate phraseology when we talk of the chances of the world, and the chapter of accidents? Life is not that vast Babel we at times describe it as being. Its innumerable voices are not blent in inextricable confusion. All the clash and roaring of its multitudinous wheels are working out the great plan

CLASSIFICATION OF IRREGULAR PHENOMENA. 289

of God. We may one day discover that there is one simple law which exhibits itself in unceasing and the most varying manifestations. There is a strange correlation between the moral and the natural world. In the natural world the most eccentric and unaccountable occurrences are now seen, with more or less of distinctness, to be referable to the simplest laws. The most varying and irregular phenomena are, as science progresses, becoming susceptible of classification, and brought within the domain of law. What is more sudden and more violent than storm and tempest? The little cloud no bigger than a man's hand expands and blackens the whole heavens. In tropical seas, suddenly the hurricane arises in fury and spreads relentless devastation. Although we cannot fully explain these phenomena, we are in possession of a clue that may enable us to do so. Science recognises what are called the laws of storms, and though we cannot reduce them to a code, we are become conscious of their existence. What is more capricious and fantastic than the appearances presented by the clouds? Evermore forming and fading, blending and separating, they lie athwart the heavens in continents and islands, shaping themselves into evanescent mockeries of reality-now reminding us of palaces and domes, and now of "lion and bear," and "dragonish vapour." And yet this aerial architecture, these irregular configurations, these melting sculptures, are in a manner amenable to law, resolve

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