Or high foreknowledge. They themselves decreed Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault, Which had no less prov'd certain, unforeknown.' "Now take it the other way, and suppose that, foreseeing an intended murder, the Almighty has resolved to protect an illustrious victim. He may do so without interfering with the murderer's free-will." "I beseech you explain," said Tremaine. "Why, even if he interposed by a miracle, and an angel is actually seen presenting a shield to the bullet, the event is prevented, but the crime is equally intended, and the will of the criminal uninvaded." "This might be confessed," said Tremaine, "but the miracle never happens.” "Not as a miracle," answered Evelyn;" but if the blow is warded by other means, I mean by natural causes, yet directed from above, the victim is equally saved, and the free-agency equally preserved." "The direction from above is the question," persisted Tremaine. "Remember the emphatic lines of Pope, Shall burning Etna, if a sage requires, When the loose mountain trembles from on high, Or some old temple nodding to its fall, For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall?' "This, in fact, is the great stumbling-block. For, will a storm at sea, brought about by the regular laws of physics, cease, because a good man (even a saint), happens to be caught in it; or if an expedition in ever so righteous a cause be overtaken by the tradewind, will the tradewind cease to blow in its usual direction because the expedition will be defeated if it do not? On the other hand, will the musket of a wicked man in a battle, when levelled at a good man, burst in his hand? or will the good man's pistol, when defending his house from robbers and murderers, be Heaven-directed to defeat them? "A child is sick; the afflicted and pious father implores Providence to bless the endeavour of the physician. Does Providence suddenly enlighten the physician's mind, discover new drugs for him, or give superior efficacy to old ones, in order to grant the prayer? If it do this, it is miracle; if it do not, though the child recover, it is not Providence. So also in the reverse of this; if the physician's knowledge is for a time clouded on purpose that the child may die, it is miracle; if it die because the physician cannot cure, it is not Providence. It was hence that I attributed our late escape, for which you scolded me, to good fortune; but as I saw no miracle, nothing even surprising, or out of the common course of things, I could not but believe myself right. "There are stories indeed, which, giving the imagination an agreeable surprise, and cheating it, as it were, into an illusion it is always fond of, for a moment startle us; but they will not bear the test of enquiry, and a wise man laughs at his own dream during the fond period that beguiled him of his reason." "Let us, however, have your stories," said Evelyn. They are scarcely worth repeating," returned Tremaine; "yet I have sometimes fastened upon them with delight. But the days are gone when I was thus happy, and thus deceived." i "You can at least remember,” said Evelyn, “ what it was that so pleased and so deceived you?" "Yes! I recollect the impression made upon me when scarce a youth, by an account of a dog which rescued a nobleman of the north, when on his travels in Germany, from a designed murder, by preventing his going to a bed, which sunk through the floor in the middle of the night. The whole was a romance, and I totally forget the authority." "I could match your dog with another," said Evelyn, "which is authenticated ;-Lord Litchfield's!": "He was found in his master's room," interrupted Tremaine, taking up the story, "where he never had been used to lie. The valet, who undressed Lord Litchfield, did all he could to turn him out, but the dog would not be caught; the man persisted with eagerness till his lord told him to let 4 him remain. That same night, the same man attempted to kill Lord Litchfield, but was prevented by an alarm given by this very dog. There are a hundred such stories, but I count nothing upon them. This however was, I believe, as you say, authentic." "There was at least a tradition of it in the family," resumed Evelyn, "and I rather hope it is true. But, true or false, I delight in both your dogs, because it is as good an illustration as I could wish of the possibility of the interference in the actions and fates of men, without preventing free agency. Both your robbers were here left free, yet their victims were protected; the feasibleness of which, with a view to show the possibility of reconciling your contradiction, is all I want to explain. "There is another story told by Hervey, of two men who had been hunting all day, and slept together at night. One dreamt he was still hunting, and exclaiming I will kill him,' laid hold of his knife, still in his sleep. The other, who was awake, hearing this, leaped out of bed, and being in safety, stopped to see what he would do. The dreamer. then, began stabbing that part of the bed where his companion had lain, and Hervey, not without reason, thinks he had been providentially kept awake. In all probability, it not only saved his own life but the dreamer's also, who would have found it hard to have escaped, by laying the death to a dream, "Upon this subject, I need not remind you of Simonides, whose life was preserved by being merely called out of a room, a minute before the roof fell in and destroyed those that remained." "In these instances," returned Tremaine, "I grant the seeming reconcilement, because here is no meddling with the laws of nature; but upon that part of the argument you have not touched. I remember, indeed, your respectable old Sherlock endeavours to build much upon this, but never, in my mind, could succeed, because he proves too much. He tells you in terms that, to be sure, the general laws by which the world exists, the motions of the heavenly bodies, the seasons, and a long et cætera, cannot be interrupted; that fire must burn, and water drown; but then again, that there are things of less consequence, such as the winds, and the rains, and the thunder, the application of which God reserves to himself, in order to influence men's conduct by punishing wickedness and rewarding virtue. There is also chance and accident, which be sure is Heaven's special province, because distinct from all rules, to be used for the same purpose. I own I did not expect from a man so learned, and not a bad reasoner upon the whole, to condescend to such refutable positions. They are not even specious; since a child with only a smattering in physics, would tell you that wind, and rain, and |