The belief in special providences and consequently in the ability of man to move his Maker by prayer and supplication has been universally entertained by mankind, and there is a consequent certitude that the Deity bestows particular attention upon this earth and its inhabitants. Savage, barbarian and patriarch are impressed equally thereby. But as individual and national experiences accumulate, as the principles of research and civilisation are unfolded, such opinions are systematised and comparatively sublimated. After the crude and petty manifestations recognised by the untutored Indian as manifestations of Supreme Attention, we find more dignified exhibitions of Divine Design and Power recorded by later teachers. Thus they recognise immediate interpositions in the birth and finding of Moses; in the captivity and escape of the tribes under his control; in his miracles, commandments and government; as also in the incarnation of Jesus, his life, miracles, teachings, and in the kind of death which he experienced; in the endowments of apostles, priests and popes; in the supreme authority invested in the Holy Bible.
The origin of the general notion may be traced primarily to ignorance.2 Those who acknowledge a belief in
supernatural manifestations or special providences have defective understanding of the Deity and His works. The same belief has also a secondary origin in desire. Some nations and individuals seek to be regarded as especially important and righteous in the sight of their Creator; and after first deceiving others, for the purpose of obtaining the approbation and emoluments consequent upon such positions, they ultimately deceive themselves. Finally, the belief which we are considering can be traced also to education. There is, however, a faith of the understanding in the local and universal government of God, in the perfection and immutability of the principles of Divine Legislation. These are so admirably arranged as to comprehend the mighty orb, the falling sparrow, the insect's eye and the human soul. Like Nature itself, the laws of Nature were not created by Deity but are the attributes of His Divine Existence and the inevitable developments of His Divine Essence.
They are outer manifestations of His own internal principles and are beyond the possibility of being changed, suspended, transcended or destroyed. The one belief which is capable of satisfying the reasonable demands of the soul is that God is perfect and immutable, that He lives through all things and has made life, harmony and happiness attainable by all. When the human mind conceives that God is impartial, that He displays His natural and harmonious attributes throughout Nature and in the deepest recesses of the soul, then it will rest and be happy, invincible by the invasions of fallacious education and hereditary prejudice. God is sufficiently minute, local and immediate in His providences to impart life and beauty to everything throughout the ramifications of infinite creation. He possesses within Himself the principles of all life, motion, sensation, intelligence. According to the absoluteness of self-existence, His celestial principles unfold and flow into the smallest atoms and organisations in Nature. From the inexhaustible plenitude of His infinite life He unfolds a vast combination of laws which will go on eternally, elaborating human spirits, and will continue to improve them more and more, in proportion as the circumstances of birth, climate, education and government advance toward intellectual development and individual perfection.
In considering special and universal providences with a belief of the understanding, the highest comfort is based upon the glorious truth that our earth is environed by a spiritual world, as indeed are all earths or planets belonging to our solar system. In truth, there is a great sphere of spiritual existence which girdles our material sphere, while encircling the former is a galaxy of more refined and magnificent spheres which are inhabited by spirits drawn on by the eternal magnet of Supreme Goodness. Thus there is a chain extending from man to Deity, and all that we can desire in the form of dispen-
sation is supplied and handed down to us by and through the spiritual inhabitants of higher spheres, as links in the chain of love. But let it be remembered here that all spirits and angels were once men who lived in physical organisations, as we live now, and died, as we shall die, prior to their departure for the spirit home. All we have relatives there, according to the consanguinities of flesh and according to spiritual affinities. And the spirit world is not far off but very near—around and above us at all times. That which was truly joined here is not separated there. Death does not divide, nor does it remove the loved ones beyond the reach of the spirit's desires or prayers. A vast variety of good suggestions and righteous impulses can flow to us from some of our natural or spiritual kindred who reside in higher spheres. So also when the soul is praying earnestly for knowledge or for light, it is reasonable to believe that the great and good who have lived on earth may draw nigh and perhaps insinuate valuable thoughts into the understanding of the praying spirit. Hence we can say truthfully that Providence imparts special information, not indeed by direct and immediate design but by the operation of those natural and unchangeable laws which govern the universal combinations of mind and matter.
Spiritual intercourse is developed and rendered practicable by the Law of Association or the Law of Affinities. Should particular responses from the spirit world contradict what others have revealed, then the only criterion to judge of their truth or falsehood is the unfailing standard of Nature and Reason. The embracing nearness of the spiritual world and its accessibility furnish the soul with every advantage it should desire through the media of providential dispensations. But if the aspiring Christian heart is dissatisfied with the indirect manner in which its prayers to God are thus answered, be it assured that no human spirit has yet conceived a thought sufficiently magnanimous or sublime to be
applied to the Great Father, nor yet even to one of the glorious beings who—once a resident on this or another earth—now treads the beautiful paths and flowering valleys of the Spirit Home.
Think not, however, because God is so inconceivable in His greatness, so elevated above special prayer and special action, that He is far removed from our spirits. In Him we "live, move and have our being"; we are in Him and of Him.1 As the trunk, branches, twigs, leaves, buds, blossoms and fruit of a tree are unfolded from essences in its germ, so does the Great Germinal Essence of the Universal Tree unfold and develop the minutest branches and blossoms which adorn the stupendous whole.2