Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/215

 General Joseph Eggleston Johnston. 215

value of each element in the life of a people, reducing the actions of men to mere forms of logic. But even where the interpretation is just, it is partial at best; and the world's history is read in sections and patches at last. But if the entire record could be placed before us in a single view, disclosing a unity of design in all its parts, how grand the lesson to those who decipher the one thought of the Deity pervading and illuminating the whole !

I have but half expressed the majesty of the conception. This earth of ours is but a speck or mote in the vastness of the universe. Look above you upon the face of the sky, and see uncounted worlds in the immensity of space. Not single worlds only, but worlds col- lected into systems, grouped into families, bound to each other by domestic ties, swinging together in wider orbits around a centre com- mon to them all for aught we know, the Sapphire Throne, from which the power of a supreme will issues to uphold and control them all. Has each of these a history of its own ? And do their several records blend in a history that is truly universal ? The creative thought is greater than all combined. What if this thought should throb as the mighty pulse of universal life and action? What if in the august future the vast canvas should be unrolled, disclosing in a single pano- rama the history of all worlds, in the connection of all the parts with the ineffable glory of Him who thus reveals Himself in the stretch of His wisdom and in the grandeur of His power ? Truly "the Lord reigneth ; let the earth rejoice ; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof."

I have not uttered these sentences merely to dazzle you with the splendor of this generalization ; it is full of comfort as well. A sin- gle life may be insignificant in its isolation, whilst in its relation to society it may be of inestimable value. Here, for illustration, is a piece of tapestry into which has been woven the history of a king- dom. The separate gossamer thread may be tinged with a color inappreciably faint, yet without its presence there would be no shading of the picture. Precisely so the most obscure life may be indispen- sable to the design which is in the mind of the Infinite Artist.

Our distinctions between great and small disappear from history when projected on the scale of the divine purpose. In like manner disasters and defeats occur in the career of every people ; yet they no more disturb the march of universal history than do the regres- sions of the planets the harmony of the stellar world. God is in