These are the facts before us. Now, first, observe the operation of this law of God's government, in respect to the introduction of those temporal blessings which are of the first importance in securing our well-being and comfort in the present life. If it was mortal man, who thus looked through the vegetable and animal worlds, and discriminated between the useful and the worthless, his name is unknown to the millions whom he has benefited. It is notorious, that those who first suggest the most happy inventions, and open a way to the secret stores of nature, those who weary themselves in the search after Truth, who strike out momentous principles of action, who painfully force upon their contemporaries the adoption of beneficial measures, or, again, who are the original cause of the chief events in national history, are commonly supplanted, as regards celebrity and reward, by inferior men. Andrew followed John the Baptist, while Simon remained at his nets.
Providence thus acts daily.
It has been remarked, that some of the most eminent Christians have been blessed with religious mothers, and have in after life referred their own graces to the instrumentality of their teaching. When we look at the history of inspiration, the same rule still holds. The book of Judges, the second of Samuel, the books of Kings, Chronicles, Esther, and Job, and great part of the book of Psalms. The last instance is the most remarkable of these. Yet the authors of a large portion of them are altogether unknown.