A remarkable statement to be made in 1824, in New England, and by a fledgling preacher of the orthodox faith and the descendant of a long line of orthodox clergymen. It is as broad and as impartial as science, and yet makes a strong imaginative appeal. Good at the heart of Nature is the purport of it, not the patent-right good of the creeds, but good, free to all who love it, a “stern kindness,” and no partial, personal, vacillating Providence whose ear is open only to the password of some sect or cult, or organization--“good against your good,” your copyrighted good, your personal, selfish good (unless it is in line with equal good to others), the broad, universal beneficence of Nature which brought us here and keeps us here, and showers its good upon us as long as we keep in right relations with it; but which goes its appointed way regardless of the sore needs of warring nations or the desperate straits of struggling men. That is the Providence that lasts, that does not change its mind, that is not indulgent, that does not take sides, that is without variableness or shadow of turning. Suppose the law of gravity were changeable, or the law of chemical reactions, or the nature of fire, or air, or water, or cohesion? Gravity never sleeps nor varies, yet see bodies rise, see others fall, see the strong master of the weak, see the waters flow and the ground stay. The laws of fluids are fixed, but see the variety of their behavior, the forms in which they crystallize, their solvent power, their stability or instability, their capacity to absorb or conduct heat--flux and change everywhere amid fixity and law. Nature is infinitely variable, which opens the door to all forms of life; her goings and comings are on such a large scale, like the rains, the dews, the sunlight, that all creatures get an equal benefit. She sows her seed with such a generous hand that enough of them are bound to fall upon fertile places. Such as are very limited in range, like those of the swamp plants, are yet cast forth upon the wind so liberally that sooner or later some of them fall upon conditions suitable to them. Nature will cover a whole township with her wind-sown seeds in order to be sure that she hits the small swamp in one corner of it. A stream of energy, not described by the adjective “inexhaustible,” bears the universe along, and all forms of life, man with the rest, take their chances amid its currents and its maelstroms. The good Providence shows itself in the power of adaptation which all forms of life possess. Some forms of sea-weed or sea-grass grow where the waves pound the shore incessantly. How many frail marine creatures are wrecked upon the shore, but how many more are not wrecked! How many ships go down in the sea, but how many more are wafted safely over it!