As to the first objection, that the minutiae of the creation are so multifarious as to confuse the mind of God, we are content to let it refute itself in every mind which has any just sense of divine knowledge and wisdom. The second objection, that some things are beneath God's notice, if it be not a captious cavil, must result from pushing too far the analogy between earthly kings and the King of kings. It is an imperfection in human potentates that they need vicegerents; let us not then attribute such a weakness to God, fancying him altogether such a one as ourselves. Again, it is to this day doubtful whether the microscope does not display the divine perfections as illustriously as the telescope; there is therefore no reason to deny a providence over animalcula which we admit over the constellated heavens. What is it that we dare call insignificant? The least of all things may be as a seed cast in to the seed-field of time, to grow there and bear fruit, which shall be multiplying when time shall be no more. We cannot always trace the connections of things. We do not ponder those we can trace: or we should tremble to call anything beneath the notice of God. It has been eloquently said that where we see a trifle hovering unconnected in space, higher spirit can discern its fibres stretching through the whole expanse of the system of the world, and hanging on the remotest limits of the future and the past. In reference to the third and fourth objections before mentioned, namely, that an all-embracing providence is incompatible with divine justice and human freedom, it should be considered that, in contemplating God's Providence, the question will often arise, why was mortal evil allowed to exist? But as these questions meet us at every turn, and, under different forms, may be termed the one and the only difficulty in theology, it is already considered in the previous chapter of this work, and may therefore require the less notice in the present article. We should in all humility preface whatever we say on the permission of evil (such as, mysticism, in religious bodies) with a confession that it is an inscrutable mystery, which our faith receives, but which our reason could not prove either to be or not to be demanded by the perfection of God. But, in addition to the vindication of God's ways which may be found in the over-ruling of evil for good, the following theories deserve notice:-- 1. Occasionalism, or the doctrine that God is the immediate cause of all men's actions. It is so called, because it maintains that men only furnish God an occasion for what he does. It degrades all second causes to mere occasions, and turns men into passive instruments.