which we suffer are
parts of a great movement conducted by Almighty power, under the
direction of Infinite Wisdom and Goodness. God's creation is a perfect
work. The world in which we live is the best possible world on the
whole; not the best possible to the individual at any given moment,
but the best possible on the whole, all creatures considered and all
the ages of man taken into the account. This is the affirmation of a
triumphant optimism.

John Stuart Mill averred that a better world could have been made and
more favorable conditions for man devised. But before this hypothesis
can be sustained, the skeptic from the beginning of time must have
scanned the history of every individual and studied it in its minutest
details. He must have explored every rill and river of influence
entering into his character. He must have understood every relation of
the individual to every other person through all the ages. He must
have mastered all the facts and laws of our earth. And as it sustains
a vital connection with the solar system, he must have grasped all the
mysteries which are involved in it.

As this system is related to the still grander one of which it is a
part, he must have known the law and workings of its every star and
sun. Still more, he must have gone from system to system with their
millions of worlds and become familiar with every part of the vast
stupendous whole. He must have learned every secret of all Nature's
forces, and have penetrated into the interior recesses of the Divine
Being. He must have taken the place of God Himself.

A Divine Providence.

Amid all our doubts and distresses we must hold fast to the belief
that there is a God who maketh the clouds His chariot and walketh upon
the wings of the wind--a God who is present in every summer breath and
every wintry blast, in every budding leaf, and every opening flower,
in the fall of every sparrow and the wheeling of every world. His
Providence is in every swinging of the tides, in every circulation of
the air, in all attractions and repulsions, in all cohesions and
gravitations. These, and the varied phenomena of nature are the direct
expressions of the Divine Energy, the modes of operation of the Divine
Mind, the manifestations of the Divine Wisdom and the expressions of
the Divine Love.

The very thunderbolt that rives the oak and by its shock sunders the
soul from the body of some unfortunate one purifies the air that
millions may breat