“The history of the world is the world’s tribunal,”[48] says one of our most famous poets. If by these words he meant to convey an opinion that no other tribunal of judgment is to be expected than that which is even now set up in the history of the world, then such an opinion, implying that the human race is to live forever in its present state, and in this particular terrestrial life, would be even as groundless as that of the fanciful conceit that the human race had existed from all eternity, if, in sooth, any of the philosophical dreamers of antiquity had ever fallen on such a fancy, or, in modern times, any of the antipodes to the usual current mode of thinking should ever stumble upon it. The poet himself, as dramatist and artist, would but have taken it ill had any one laid before him a great drama, composed of several acts and scenes, from which, however, the beginning was torn off, and which, ever going on, untied the existing perplexities only to fall again into new and fresh complications; or like a poor journal ever referring to a continuation, had no true end, no conclusion or proper termination. But unquestionably a better sense is also contained in the poet’s words. He may have merely meant to say that the mind which rules the course of mundane affairs is a mind that inflicts retribution on the world; and that all the great epochs and incidents of history have a retributive character and vindicatory significance.[49] Such an interpretation of the words, which indeed suits well with the author’s serious mind and character, would bring them in perfect unison with my own sentiments, and adequately express the truth which forms the theme of our present consideration on the divine order in the history of the human race.