Ragnarok : the age of fire and gravel

THE AFTER-WORD. 437

CHAPTER VIII. THE AFTER-WORD.

Wauen that magnificent genius, Francis Bacon, sent forth one of his great works to the world, he wrote this prayer :

“Thou, O Father, who gavest the visible light as the first-born of thy creatures, “and didst pour into man the intellectual light as the top and consummation of thy workmanship, be pleased to protect and govern this work, which coming from thy goodness returneth to thy clory.

« We humbly beg that this mind may be steadfastly in us; and that thou, by our hands and the hands of others, on whom thou shalt bestow the same spirit, wilt please to convey a largess of new alms to thy family of mankind.”

And again he says:

“This also we beg, that human things may not prejudice such as are divine ; neither that from the unlocking of the gates of sense, and the kindling of a greater natural light, anything of incredulity, or intellectual night, may arise in our minds toward divine mysteries.”

In the same spirit, but humbly halting afar after this illustrious man, I should be sorry to permit this book to go out to the world without a word to remove the impression which some who read it, and may believe it, may form, that such a vast catastrophe as I have depicted militates against the idea that God rules and cares for his world and his creatures. It will be asked, If “there is a special providence even in the fall of a sparrow,” how