Before the Father’s sight in bliss—
Who will the same in Heaven reward,
Consists in holy deeds, like this:
To heed, when cold Affliction’s shaft
Is at the helpless Orphan hurled—
The Widow visit, and to keep
Himself unspotted from the world.
TITUS QUINCTIUS FLAMININUS.[[2]]
Of all the truths at which we arrive through a calm and dispassionate study of history, none appears to me more certain than this, that, as regards the career and course of empires, the rise and fall of states, there neither is, nor has been, any such thing as Fortune; that from the beginning of time, to the events born of the present day, every minute particular, every seemingly unimportant incident—or, as men are fond to call it, accident—in the affairs of nations, is part and parcel of one grand, universal, all-pervading scheme of divine world-government, projected before the patriarch kings led forth their flocks to feed on pastures yet moist with the waters of the deluge, but not to be fulfilled until time itself shall have an end.