Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-07-22
SUNDAY READING.


has any defined notions concerning that inter
esting question, but, rather, because the
phrase keeps presenting itself, like an aIpa1-
ton and demanding recognition and an at
tempt at treatment What IS a SPECIAL Prov
idenee? What is Providence, itself! We will
not 90 to that exhaustless fount of definition,
Websters Unabridged, which is temptlngly
at hand, for an answer, but we Will, instead,
grope our own way along toward an elucda-
ton of the word as it is received and used by
the general understanding and custom If
Barnaby, going hungry and forlorn to his
howell or his stable yard for supperless sleep
finds fve-dollar piece in the road, if he be
1t all devout man, thanks Providence; and
if he be temperate man and proyldent,
he supplies his lean larder and makes sure
that pinching hunger and gaunt famine are
kept away for season; if he be an improvl-
dent man, which is likely, he seeks the near
est dram-shop, becomes Ger all the ills OF life
victorious and wakens to a condition all the
more hopeless for his Providential find. But
supposing Barnaby makes the best and most
prudent use of his deodand, what about
Reuben, the poor fellow who lost that piece
of money! Where does his share of the Prov
idence find application! Is hole IN his
pocket Providentiall Or is the treacherous
out flirting of his handkerchief, bringing the
loose coin with it, an act or accident OF tate
full grace intended by the Great Mystery for
Barnaby's benefit Or is the Providence Of a
= ~,
ing verdure of Farmer Weedhoes potato crop
to be regarded as unprovidential calamity
for the disastrous drenching which it gives
poor Redtop's windrows of new mown hay?
We are selfish creatures, we men and women:
and somehow we are at times so wrapped in
our own conceit and so much absorbed by
oux own interests that we are like to take to
ourselves, as if especially meant for us,
cleansing shower, notwithstanding breeze,
a sudden burst of sunlight or an intervening
cloud When nature or accident or happy
condolences fall the way we would have
things trend We see the Everlasting bending
things out of their course to please and graf
ify ourselves, and our c0nceit bears us up
with the self-consolation that the Hand of
Providence has been opened for our especial
behoof And yet the seasons come and go;
the tide rises and falls; the sun comes in the
east and goes away in the west; the moon
and the stats enlighten the night; the thun-
der of the cataract and the roll and roar of
the ocean never cease; men are born and |
die and are buried in the ceaseless, relentless |
Init Of oil OY
his wishes, and with movements too vast,
too eternal and too systematic to be attrib-
uted to what we call Providence, but which
are the growth and progress and evOlvement
Of that which we cannot help feeling is
stronger than Providence, Nature, herself
That which causes the tree to put forth
leaves and buds and blossoms; which makes
the grass always green and the many colored
flowers to obey their seeds and push aside
the earth and reach up toward the sky;
that which invites the birds to come
and go, and build their nests and
sing their songs; that which, year after year,
bids the bees to swarm and maintain their
colonies and perfect their wonderful work;
that which tells the worm to resolve itself
into the chrysalis, and inspires the chrysalis
into the splendid butterfly; that which causes
the soft down to grow upon the horns of the
young deer, and makes the doe seek her mate; !
that which makes the robin always and |
through all ages sing the same song, apd the
wild duck preserve THE same colors and the
same habits-this Power is that against whose =
lnexorable course and force we, weaklings r
that We are, invoke the convenient mystery |
and interpOsition OF Special Providence. t
Nature changes not her course Not any i,
human fabric or invention can be so system q
attic as Herself. Look how sentient she is | b
Touch one of her blades of grass with the 6
sickle or scythe girdle but one of her trees 4
but one of her processes, and see !,
how quick she resents it, or how hurt she is Ii
Mark the regularity of her movements and t.
her workings. The chronologist can tell you
he length of every day, from now on, until T.
he expanse of time exhausts the comprehen-
ion (; the astronomer can tell you to min
tie, when the stars and the comets and the 6,
howers of meteors will come and go; the a
navigator sails his ship by exact and inexora- b.
lie rules; and the moon herself marks the "
bling and flowing of the great tides of the ~.
yer restless sea. The earthquake, the'cloud- W