on by an interposition of God. During a
collision, the carriage in which he sat was lifted clean on to another
line of rails, and thus escaped the fate of the other carriages, which
were broken to pieces. Pious Thomas recognised at once the finger
of God, and he there and then fell on his knees and offered up a
thanksgiving. He was too vain to carry his argument out to its logical
end. Why did the Lord protect him, and not his fellow-travellers? Was he
of more importance than any of the others? And why, if it was right to
thank God for saving Thomas Cooper, would it be wrong to curse him for
smashing all the rest?

This superstition of Providence is dying out. Common people are
gradually being left to the laws of Nature. If a workhouse were to
catch on fire, no one would speak of those who escaped the flames as
providentially saved. God does not look after the welfare of paupers;
nor is it likely that he would pluck a charwoman's brat out of the fire
if it tumbled in during her absence. Such interpositions are absurd. But
with kings, queens, princes, princesses, and big nobs in general, the
case is different. God looks after the quality. He stretches forth his
hand to save them from danger, from the pestilence that walketh by day
and the terror that walketh by night. And his worshippers take just the
same view of the "swells." When the Queen came to London, a few weeks
ago, one of her mounted attendants was thrown and badly hurt; and the
next day one of the loyal Tory papers reported that her Majesty had
completely recovered from the accident to her outrider!

But if the Lord overlooks the great ones of the earth, why is he not
impartial? He did not turn aside Guiteau's bullet, nor did he answer the
prayers of a whole nation on its knees. President Garfield was allowed
to die after a long agony. Poor Mrs. Garfield believed up to the very
last minute that God would interpose and save her husband. But he never
did. Why was he so indifferent in this case? Was it because Garfield was
a President instead of a King, the elected leader of free men instead of
the hereditary ruler of political slaves? Informer Newdegate would say
so. In his opinion God Almighty hates Republicans. Yet the Bible clearly
shows that the Lord is opposed to monarchy. He gave his chosen people a
king as a punishment, after plainly telling them what an evil they had
sought; and there is perhaps a covert irony in the story of Saul, the
son of Kish, who