The New York herald., 1872-11-18
YORK HERALD MONDAY NOVEMBER 1s 1s72RIPLE SHEET

IL equally true concerning the moral world. the
world OF mind, OF man; and as the mightiest forces
tuates the deeds OF mans life. What Is 1t that
makes
WHAT WE CALL HISTORY
This Invisible purpose running through the lives
OF men and OF nations. The herOsm OF one man.
thc meanness, the tyranny Of another the im6e;
mechanism into results, and what saves the
product but this invisible purpose, toward which
the universal law Of the moral world 70 guided @ NO
dental or inscrutable 1t is one OF series that
have come in their turn Tor. six thousand
Providence Is untiringly carrying out its great
purposes: 1t seems that misiortunes gather TO-
homely sayings, .Mislortunos never come sngy,"
ut never rains but it p0urs," Illustrate truth
that has Decn oXemplfed through all ages. The
present time seems TO be
CYCLE OF CATASTROPHE.
The volcano, the earthquake, the tempest, the
Mood. have al scourGed the world in their various
ways, and within a year the Eastern and the West
ein horizons Of our own country have been lighted
by the blaze of disastrous fires. There is one
trenchant lesson all these teach us at once. They
teach that there 10 Power above and beyond us
against whom We can do nothing; that we stand
treasures which will fade. and that our granite
mansions will melt If that something above so
Wills, and that we are as naught before it, AS to
TLIrrANr WITH THE WORD JUDGMENT,
let the lesson be taught them as the counscors OF
Job were taught from the midst oil the terrible
earthquake. But these great caamites teach US
also the lesson OF the necessity OF human care and
Watchfulncss. Is 1t y mystery that the plague
should seek the impure places and the foul spots
and is human responsibility clear when 1t has
pitched its tent where. there were ranks OF living
men, and the night cometh and the ground Is
strewn with human carcases, and the ships at
sea are drifting charnels Scionce has been gain
ing the mastery the plague tnat comes fom
the East but does that show that its dread visits
are any the less the work OF Providence or that
its dreadful devastation is less witness to our
own carelessness2 OAicers are ncglectul, the ship
unseawOrthy the machinery detective, and storm
at sea adds another to our list OF dire disasters.
There Is no calamity that does not have its human
side and present these
LESSONS or WARNING AND or CAUTION
to the human intellect But there Is one great good
always subserved by these great catastrophes. The
individual man is advanced to higher grandeur
by each recurring calamity. The busy chase after
material good Is suddenly checked and man COM
prehends that there Is a higher good 1he life that
mas been narrowed down by avarice to the acqusi-
tion OF material wealth alone c0mprehends how
fral and deusive has been his aim when his granite
blocks melt away like snow before the fire and the
released forces of Nature break from their fiery
Boston fire is the sympathy that is engendercd In
the hearts OF all men by her misfortune, and
THE STERLING MANHOOD
that Is called into being by the demands or the
occasion. / am not myself or Boston or OF New
England, but love anu Lonor Boston, not for her
material acquisitions, not Tor her granite blocks,
but for hsr institutions oil learning, her colleges
her progress in ideas, her intellect, her men.
reflex OF their fathers. / see the fathers in that
ancient December snow, amid that ancient wilder
ness, building an empire on their Western rock, and
see the sons with their fathers spirit, manluliy
fighting the flames and nobly confronting the dis
aSter that threatens ruin. There are great lessons
ana great good in oil caanites for "aifctOn
cometh not forth from the dust neither doth trouble
spring out OF the ground"