Surely Christianity, whatever else it teaches, at any rate assures us of this. And when we have made this faith our own, when we believe it, and not merely believe that we believe it, we have in our hand the clue to all human history. Mysteries in abundance will always remain. We may not be able to trace the workings of the law of righteousness in the confusions and bewilderments of our own day, or through the darkness and mist which shrouds so much of the life of other times and other races. But we know that it is there, and that it has its ground in a righteous will, which was the same a thousand years ago as it is to-day, which every man and nation can get to know; and just in so far as they know and obey which, will they be founding families, institutions, states, which will abide. If we want to test this truth in the most practical manner, we have only to take any question which has troubled, or is troubling, statesmen and rulers, and nations, in our own day. The slavery question is among the greatest of these. In the divine order, that institution was not recognized, there was no place at all set apart for it; on the contrary, He on whose will that order rests had said that he came to break every yoke. And so slavery would give our kindred in America no rest, just as it would give England no rest in the first thirty years of the century. The nation, desiring to go on living its life, making money, subduing a continent, “Pitching new states as old-world men pitch tents,” tried every plan for getting rid of the “irrepressible negro” question, except the only one recognized in the divine order—that of making him free. The ablest and most moderate men, the Websters and Clays, thought and spoke and worked to keep it on its legs. Missouri compromises were agreed to, “Mason and Dixon’s lines” laid down, joint committees of both houses—at last even a “crisis committee,” as it was called—invented plan after plan to get it finally out of the way by any means except the only one which the eternal law, the law of righteousness, prescribed. But he whose will must be done on earth was no party to Missouri compromises, and Mason and Dixon’s line was not laid down on his map of North America. And there never were wanting men who could recognize His will, and denounce every compromise, every endeavor to set it aside, or escape from it, as a “covenant with death and hell.” Despised and persecuted men—Garrisons and John Browns—were raised up to fight this battle, with tongue and pen and life’s blood, the weak things of this world to confound the mighty; men who could look bravely in the face the whole power and strength of their nation in the faith of the old prophet: “Associate yourselves and ye shall be broken in pieces; gather yourselves together and ye shall come to nought, for God is with us.” And at last the thunder-storm broke, and when it cleared away the law of righteousness had asserted itself once again, and the nation was delivered.