“A friend desires to be informed of the difference between Calvinism and the Fatalism maintained by Mahometans [Muslims]. I answer, Fatalism teaches that all things are governed by blind, undesigning fate — atheism asserts that all things are the sport of blind chance and contingency. The Bible teaches that ‘all things are of God.’ On this holy ground Calvinism plants her standard, distant alike from the two extremes of blind fate and blind contingence, (Truth lies in the middle,) and rejoices, with joy unspeakable, that an infinitely intelligent and benevolent Being, for his own glory and the greatest good, ‘works all things after the counsel of his own will.’” — James Gallaher, The Western Sketch-Book (1850), p. 338