380 RELIGIOUS VIEWS.

world contains, and must entertain the purposes
for which their responsible agency was given
them. It must include these laws and purposes,
connected by means of the notions, which re-
sponsibility implies, of desert and reward, of
moral excellence in various degrees, and of
well-being as associated with right doing. All
the laws which govern the moral world are ex-
pressions of the thought and intentions of our
Supreme Ruler. All the contrivances for moral
no less than for physical good, for the peace of
mind, and other rewards of virtue, for the eleva-
tion and purification of individual character, for
the civilization and. refinement of states, their
advancement in intellect and virtue, for the dif-
fusion of good, and the repression of evil; all
the blessings that wait on perseverance and
energy in a good cause; on unquenchable love
of mankind, and tmconquerable devotedness to
truth; on purity and self-denial ; on faith, hope,
and charity ;-~all these things are indications of
the character, will, and future intentions of that
God, of whom we have endeavoured to track
the footsteps upon earth, and to show his han-
diwork in the heavens. “ This God is our God,
for ever and ever.” And if, endeavouring to
trace the plan of the vast labyrinth of laws by
which the universe is governed, we are some-
times lost and bewildered, and can scarcely, or
not at all, discern the lines by which pain, and
sorrow, and vice fall in with a scheme directed