World-plan; and the power with which I shall perform it is Thy power. Whatever is commanded by that voice, whatever executed by that power, is, in that plan, assuredly and truly good. I remain tranquil amid all the events of this world, for they are in Thy world. Nothing can perplex or surprise or dishearten me, as surely as Thou livest, and I can look upon Thy life. For in Thee, and through Thee, O Infinite One! do I behold even my present world in another light. Nature, and natural consequences, in the destinies and conduct of free beings, as opposed to Thee, become empty, unmeaning words. Nature is no longer; Thou, only Thou, art. It no longer appears to me to be the end and purpose of the present world to produce that state of universal peace among men, and of unlimited dominion over the mechanism of nature, merely for its own sake;—but that it should be produced by man himself,—and, since it is expected from all, that it should be produced by all, as one great, free, moral, community. Nothing new and better for an individual shall be attainable, except through his own virtuous will; nothing new and better for a community, except through the common will being in accordance with duty:—this is a fundamental law of the great moral empire, of which the present life is a part. Thus is the good will of the individual so often lost to this world, because it is but the will of the individual, and the will of the majority is not in harmony with his;—and then its results are to be found solely in a future world. Thus do even the passions and vices of men cooperate in the attainment of good,—not in and for themselves, for in this sense good can never come out of evil,—but by holding the balance against the opposite vices, and,
