all will go wrong--the effect will not be produced.

There must be a =first cause= to set in operation all inferior ones in
the production of action; and to that _first_ cause all action, nay, the
existence of all other causes, may be traced, directly, or more distant.
The intervening causes, in the consecutive order of things, may be as
diversified as the links in the chain of variant beings. Yet all these
causes are moved by the all-sufficient and ever present agency of the
Almighty Father, the =Uncaused Cause= of all things and beings; who
spoke into existence the universe with all its various and complicated
parts and orders; who set the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament,
gave the earth a place, and fixed the sea a bed; throwing around them
barriers over which they can never pass. From the height of his eternal
throne, his eye pervades all his works; from the tall archangel, that
"adores and burns," down to the very hairs of our heads, which are all
numbered, his wise, benevolent, and powerful supervision may be traced
in legible lines, which may be seen and read of all men. And from
effects, the most diminutive in character, may be traced back, from
cause to cause, upward in the ascending scale of being, to the same
unrivalled Source of all power, splendor, and perfection, the presence
of Him, who spake, and it was done; who commanded, and it _stood still_;
or, as the poet has it:

"Look thro nature up to nature's God."

The _means_ of action are those aids which are displayed as the medium
thro which existing causes are to exhibit their hidden powers in
producing changes or effects. The matches in the pocket of Guy Fawkes
were the direct means by which he intended to set in operation a train
of causes which should terminate in the destruction of the house of
lords and all its inmates. Those matches, set on fire, would convey a
spark to the faggots, and thence to the powder, and means after means,
and cause after cause, in the rapid succession of events, would ensue,
tending to a final, inevitable, and melancholy result.

A ball shot from a cannon, receives its first impulse from the powder;
but it is borne thro the air by the aid of a principle inherent in
itself, which power is finally overcome by the density of the atmosphere
which impedes its progress, and the law of gravitation finally attracts
it to the earth. These contending principles may be known by observing
the curved line in which the ball