THERE are great crises in the history of man, in which the sovereignty of God over kings and people, however it may be hidden for a time from the eyes of the multitude, is manifested with such demonstrations of power as to excite the conviction of even the most incredulous. While favoring breezes bear the ship smoothly over the wide ocean, the crew and passengers, careless and inattentive, forget the arm of God, and perhaps give way to blasphemy. But when "the Lord commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind,"when the billows dash over the vessel,-when the sails are torn away and the masts are broken,-when these thoughtless people "mount up to the heaven, and go down again to the depths," ...... then the Almighty appears to them in the midst of the storm:-All eyes behold Him; all hearts tremble before Him; and the most impious, falling on their knees, cry to Him from the bottom of their souls. When man will not hear the "still small voice" in which Jehovah ordinarily addresses him, then, to use the language of Scripture, "He passes by in a great and strong wind, rending the mountains and breaking the rocks in pieces."
Of all the events which diversify human history, there is none in which mankind more readily acknowledge the intervention of the Deity than in the revolutions of empires,—the