When any one acknowledges a moral governor of the world; perceives that domestic and social relations are perpetually operating and seem intended to operate, to retain and direct men in the path of duty; and feels that the voice of conscience, the peace of heart which results from a course of virtue, and the consolations of devotion, are ever ready to assume their office as our guides and aids in the conduct of all our actions;--he will probably be willing to acknowledge also that the means of moral government are not wanting, and will no longer be oppressed or disturbed by the apprehension that the superintendence of the world may be too difficult for its Ruler, and that any of His subjects and servants may be overlooked. He will no more fear that the moral than that the physical laws of God’s creation should be forgotten in any particular case: and as he knows that every sparrow which falls to the ground contains in its structure innumerable marks of the Divine care and kindness, he will be persuaded that every individual, however apparently humble and insignificant, will have his moral being dealt with according to the laws of God’s wisdom and love; will be enlightened, supported, and raised, if he use the appointed means which God’s administration of the world of moral light and good offers to his use. CHAPTER IV. _On the Impression produced by the Contemplation of Laws of Nature; or, on the Conviction that Law implies Mind._ The various trains of thought and reasoning which lead men from a consideration of the natural world to the conviction of the existence, the power, the providence of God, do not require, for the most part, any long or laboured deduction, to give them their effect on the mind. On the contrary, they have, in every age and country, produced their impression on multitudes who have not instituted any formal reasonings upon the subject, and probably upon many who have not put their conclusions in the shape of any express propositions. The persuasion of a superior intelligence and will, which manifests itself in every part of the material world, is, as is well known, so widely diffused and deeply infixed, as to have made it a question among speculative men whether the notion of such a power is not universal and innate. It is our business to show only how plainly and how universally such a belief results from the study of the appearances about us. That in many nations, in many periods, this persuasion has been mixed up with much that was erroneous and perverse in the opinions of the intellect or the fictions of fancy, does not weaken the force of such consent. The belief of a supernatural and presiding power runs through all these errors: and while the perversions are manifestly the work of caprice and illusion, and vanish at the first ray of sober inquiry, the belief itself is substantial and consistent, and grows in strength upon every new examination. It was the firmness and