heavens and fringe the imperial realm of physical being, then what may
not be predicated of the profounder mysteries that lie bosomed in those
unexplored depths of the Universe, where the fixed stars hold high
court? When our feet trip at every step of our advance to know the
mysteries of nature, why need we affect surprise when the profounder
domain of providence refuses to yield up its secrets? That the ways of
God are mysterious is a logical necessity. The Infinite disparity
between the human and the Divine intelligence involves it. Insignificant
as a lady's finger ring may seem when compared to one of the mighty
rings of Saturn, the human mind, in the presence of the Divine, is
infinitely more so. Well hath the Scriptures said, "Far as the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts."

The mysterious ways of Providence are, however, not unfrequently so
interwoven with human events as that average intelligence may be able to
understand portions of them, though much of mystery must always remain.
And in no one particular do these understandable portions find a clearer
illustration than in those interventions which assign individual men to
given pursuits and responsibilities in life. Truly, "There is a
Providence that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will."

Nor may these special interventions be wholly appropriated by the great
men of the world. On the contrary, they not unfrequently condescend to
bless the very humblest. The same great thought, the same skilled hand
and the same infinite power that were necessary to pile up the grandest
mountain ranges and hollow the ocean's bed, were also required to create
a single grain of sand and assign it its place as a part of the grand
whole. So, while great and honorable men pass into the world's history
as the proteges of a special providence, let it also be remembered that