to point his hopes to the future. And the temptations to which he
must necessarily be exposed, from the operation of those laws of
nature which we have been examining, would seem to represent the
world in the light in which it has been frequently considered, as
a state of trial and school of virtue preparatory to a superior
state of happiness. But I hope I shall be pardoned if I attempt
to give a view in some degree different of the situation of man
on earth, which appears to me to be more consistent with the
various phenomena of nature which we observe around us and more
consonant to our ideas of the power, goodness, and foreknowledge
of the Deity.

It cannot be considered as an unimproving exercise of the
human mind to endeavour to 'vindicate the ways of God to man' if
we proceed with a proper distrust of our own understandings and a
just sense of our insufficiency to comprehend the reason of all
we see, if we hail every ray of light with gratitude, and, when
no light appears, think that the darkness is from within and not
from without, and bow with humble deference to the supreme wisdom
of him whose 'thoughts are above our thoughts' 'as the heavens
are high above the earth.'

In all our feeble attempts, however, to 'find out the
Almighty to perfection', it seems absolutely necessary that we
should reason from nature up to nature's God and not presume to
reason from God to nature. The moment we allow ourselves to ask
why some things are not otherwise, instead of endeavouring to
account for them as they are, we shall never know where to stop,
we shall be led into the grossest and most childish absurdities,
all progress in the knowledge of the ways of Providence must