zation which has not been experienced in any preceding age; it is distributing benefits, and conferring blessings in all quarters of the globe. To what can this be attributed? The facts are certain; where are we to find their causes? Some may say, as intimated in the preceding chapter, it is the activity of the human mind which is producing them. This may be admitted, but what has put the mind into this state of activity in modern times? And how did it happen that it remained for so many centuries before in a state of sluggishness and torpor? These questions cannot be answered upon the principle that the human mind has been the sole cause of these results. The mind does not shut itself up, neither does it put itself in motion. These effects must be referred to some other cause. The degradation of the mind can only be attributed to some unfavourable influences operating upon it; and any elevation which it experiences must be ascribed to some benevolent source higher than itself. As, therefore, the Lord's declaration is divinely true, namely, "Without me ye can do nothing,"[1] it will follow that He is the primary Author of all the advantages which society is now beginning to enjoy; and as they have a greatness and superiority over those of all preceding time, it plainly appears that He is by them realizing His promise to "come again." He is "the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."[2] "A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven."[3] "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights;"[4] and where His blessings are, there He must be: they cannot be separated from Him, nor He from them. When, then, they are displayed in such abundance and richness as we see them to be in the period in which
