That good will come of it, we think is
beyond a question; but we greatly doubt whether it will come in the
particular form, or by the specified agencies, that human
calculations would lead us to expect. It must be admitted that the
previous preparations, which have induced the present effort, are
rather in opposition to, than the consequences of, calculated
agencies; overturning in their progress the very safeguards which
the sagacity of men had interposed to the advance of those very
opinions that have been silently, and by means that would perhaps
baffle inquiry, preparing the way for the results that have been so
suddenly and unexpectedly obtained. If the course is onward, it is
more as the will of God, than from any calculations of man; and it
is when the last are the most active, that there is the greatest
reason to apprehend the consequences.
Of such a dispensation of the Providence of Almighty God, do we
believe Peter to have been the subject. Among the thousand ways that
are employed to touch the heart, he had been most affected by the
sight of a dying man's asking benedictions on his enemies! It was
assailing his besetting sin; attacking the very citadel of his
savage character, and throwing open, at once, an approach into the
deepest recesses of his habits and dispositions.
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