knew. No unprejudiced man who looks at history can fail to see from how
small and apparently unimportant an event has sprung the greatest
results to the individual, the nation, and the world. The Christian, at
least, needs no other explanation of this than that his God, without
whose knowledge no sparrow falleth to the ground, guides all the affairs
of the world. Surely God did not make the world, and purchase the
salvation of its tenants by the sacrifice of his Son, to take no further
interest in it, but leave it subject either to fixed law or blind
chance! Indeed the God who provided for the wants of his people in the
wilderness is a God who changeth not. The principles which once guided
him must guide him to-day and forever. There never has been a time when
to the open eye it was not clear that he provides for every want of his
creatures. Did chance or the unassisted powers of man discover coal,
when wood was becoming scarce? and oil and gas from coal, when the whale
was failing? Cowper's mind was clear when he said:--

"Deep in unfathomable mines
With never-failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his gracious will."

If in his temporal affairs God cares for man, much more will he do for
his soul. Great multitudes of young men came to be congregated in the
cities, and Satan spread his nets at every street-corner to entrap them.

In 1837, George Williams, then sixteen years of age, employed in a
dry-goods establishment, in Bridgewater, England, gave himself to the
service of the Lord Jesus Christ. He immediately began to influence the
young men with him, and many of them were converted. In 1841, Williams
came to London, and entered the dry-goods house of Hitchcock and