those of a neighboring diamond, "Cousins, how is this? are we not of the same family,—nay, of the very same blood and bone? are we not in fact every whit at good as you? How is it, then, that every body stares at you, as they go by,—ay, and stop and draw forth their purses, and offer nameless sums to possess you, while they do not even cast upon us so much as a glance?"—"It is the difference in our order," reply the diamond molecules; "'order is Heaven's first law:' the difference in arrangement is what constitutes the great distinction between us: you are huddled there together in none-can-tell what a chaotic mass,—there is no seeing through you at all; but we stand here arranged in an elegant and lucid order: it is no wonder that they look at us!"
Now, here, is a great truth, a profound truth, reaching further into the depths of things, than any one would, from its seeming simplicity, at first imagine, Order is indeed Heaven's first law: it is the great law that regulates all things natural and spiritual, in earth and in heaven: and according as they stand in relation to that law, so is determined their essential character. There is a standard of order: that is, the Divine,—God Himself. Things, as they were originally created from God,—consequently from that Order, and in forms correspondent to that Order,—were all good. They differed indeed; but they differed only in variety of beauty and excellence, as derived from different parts of the Divine Order: they differed only as the foot from, the hand, or the ear from the eye; each had its beauty, each its worth: all were good, and useful, and joyful—so to speak—in their several kinds and degrees of existence, as variously derived from the
