Thus in the midst of all the darkness of providence, there is discoverable a plan of infinite wisdom. And he who humbly and devoutly meditates upon the progress of human events, detects the presence of the Almighty, ofttimes indeed vaguely, like the feeble glimmerings of the smoking furnace, but often distinctly and clearly, like the burning lamp. Thus does Jehovah, in his providence, move through the ages in much the same manner as he appeared to the patriarch, when the furnace and the lamp passed between the pieces of his sacrifice. But why need we range abroad? Why look far away? Who that devoutly studies the ways of Providence towards himself, who that habitually contemplates what he has passed and is passing through, does not discover the Almighty wrapped in the same mysterious drapery which he wore when he appeared to Abram? Yes; the smoking furnace and the burning lamp still pass before us, and shape our lives. How many times has God touched the hidden springs of action, and turned the current of our history! How often has he mysteriously hedged up our way, and disappointed us; made our surest calculations fail, our favorite plans miscarry! How has he led us by a way we knew not, and caused us to stand perplexed, bewildered, and alarmed at his unlooked-for interpositions! What sudden calamities have befallen us; what sore chastisements have come upon us! How many times has God's face been hid in clouds! How often have we asked, What can his doings mean? Why does he scatter our possessions? Why is health prostrated, and we left to languish amid pains and sicknesses? Why did he let death make those little graves in the churchyard, where our darlings are sleeping, who used to fill our homes with sunshine, and paint rainbows in the clouds of life's pilgrimage? Oh how many times are we perplexed at the Almighty's doings! In such seasons of disappointment and affliction, we think upon God and are troubled. He passes before us in the thick gloom and darkness of the night of sorrow: about all we can see of him is a smoking furnace, with its smouldering embers, scarcely emitting from within a pale, faint, spectral gleam, while dim wreaths of clouds whirl and roll above it. God's ways seem dark and impenetrable. Such are our first impressions. But while we continue to gaze upon his doings, and follow out his providences to their conclusions; when, after Time with his soothing balm has assuaged the first sharp pangs of our wounded hearts, we study carefully the tendencies and results of God's dispensations with us, Oh how often do the clouds break and scatter, and the deep mysteries of his dealings receive a new interpretation.