Now, it is true that the providence of God extends to all events and circumstances of the world. Every permission, therefore, of evil, whether in a greater or less degree, every misfortune and calamity that happens to us, must, from this point of view, be regarded either as a well-merited punishment or as a severe trial, as a wholesome pang and conflict or as a painful transition to a higher degree of perfection. This, at least, will be our feeling, in proportion as we entertain and faithfully follow a religious view and estimate of our own life and fortunes, as well as of all mundane events, in a firm and unshaken faith in the Divine Omnipotence and Wisdom. Even for the preservation and health of his physical life, man stands in need of pain and privation, but still more so for his moral improvement.
Now, notwithstanding that this principle of a divine providence is equally applicable in every case, still, even the religious estimate, not to say a simply human mode of judging of political events and relations, is in republics subject to the following important and essential modification. In such a constitution, all hangs, or is made dependent, on the choice or the caprice of men, or, if such terms be preferred, their merit and intelligence. Consequently, the entire blame of every error or miscarriage in government, whether real or imaginary, and however great or little, is forthwith ascribed to its human administrators. But an injury at the hands of man invariably provokes bitterness, revenge, and opposition. On the contrary, a misfortune which overtakes us from God, and which, as being unable to impute the blame of it to any human individual, we feel and recognize to be a divine visitation, awakens in us wholesome and salutary reflection. Thus it is founded on the very nature of things, and on a right and sound state of human feeling, that a change from a year of plenty to one of want and barrenness should be borne with patience and resignation. But if, on the other hand, a general scarcity and dearth, or any similar affliction and disproportion between the supply and demand of the necessaries of life, should occur among a trading or manufacturing population, of which the source should really or apparently lie in some erroneous measure or selfish policy of those on whom the administration of the state devolved, all minds would immediately be in a state of excitement and uproar. And, in fact, the words of the pious king in Holy Writ: "Let us fall now into the hands of the Lord, for His mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man,"[54] are quite in unison with the general feelings of human nature.