cynical remarks, and occasions unjust and ungenerous suspicions, it may be also turned to good account by leading us to form charitable judgments of the failings of others, whose trials and temptations may have been more severe than ours, and to exercise a strict judgment in estimating our own conduct, which, however it may have borne the test of such trials as we have had to encounter, might possibly have succumbed under greater difficulties.

But it is not with this practical consideration, however useful, that I am now concerned, but with the general principle, that for the establishment and proof of the highest order of righteousness and goodness in beings such as we are, endued with freedom of choice and of will, a severe probation is needful. And it may be that under the limitations imposed on us, this is only of possible attainment out of such trials as may be attended with many failures, that it requires hard discipline and vigorous fighting with evil, issuing in the conquest of forces, which for the very purpose of the probation must be such as to endanger and possibly occasion failure at the first, and which may prove too strong for principles felt, but not as yet rendered habitually prevalent by the very conflict in which they are engaged. I think it may, perhaps, be seen that it is in this line of thought we may best find our way out of the perplexity which the existence of evil has at all times caused to the minds of men. And here, before passing on to the fuller consideration of this subject, let me quote a striking passage from one of the most ancient writings of the primitive Church, commonly, though I believe erroneously, called the Second Epistle of S. Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, but at any rate the oldest example we have of a primitive sermon or

homily. The words, for their value, were preserved by one of the later Greek fathers (John of Damascus), but they occupy their proper place in the recently discovered MS. of this document in its integrity. The writer says: "Let not this disturb your mind that we see the wicked abounding in wealth, and the servants of God straitened. We, however, have faith, brethren and sisters. We are contending as athletes in the lists of a living God, and exercise ourselves in the life that now is, that we may be crowned in that which is to come. None of the righteous has been wont to receive a speedy recompense, but waits for it. For if God all at once repaid the reward of the righteous, we should straightway be engaged in a profitable trade instead of the practice of godliness, for we should have been righteous in appearance, pursuing not piety but gain; and for this cause Divine judgment would have hurt the spirit as not being righteous, and a bond would have weighed it down.”*

The existence of evil, physical and moral, in a world supposed to owe its being to an omnipotent, all-wise and

* ̓Αλλὰ μηδὲ ἐκεῖνο τὴν διάνοιαν ὑμῶν ταρασσέτω, ὅτι βλέπομεν τοὺς ἀδίκους πλουτοῦντας, καὶ στενοχωρουμένους τοὺς τοῦ Θεοῦ δούλους. Πιστεύο ομεν οῦν, ἀδελφοὶ καὶ ἀδελφαί· Θεοῦ ζῶντος πεῖραν ἀθλοῦμεν καὶ γυμναζόμεθα τῷ νῦν βίῳ ἵνα τῷ μέλλοντι στεφανωθῶμεν. Οὐδεὶς τῶν δικαίων ταχὺν καρπὸν ἔλαβεν, ἀλλ ̓ ἐκδέχεται αὐτόν. Εἰ γὰρ τὸν μισθὸν τῶν δικαίων ὁ Θεὸς συντόμως ἀπεδίδου, εὐθέως ἐμπορίαν ἠσκοῦμεν καὶ οὐ θεοσέβειαν· ἐδοκοῦμεν γὰρ εἶναι δίκαιοι, οὐ τὸ εὐσεβὲς ἀλλὰ τὸ κερδαλέον διώκοντες, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο θεία κρίσις ἔβλαψε πνεῦμα, μὴ ὂν δίκαιον, καὶ ἐβάρυνε δεσμός.—Clem. ad Cor. ii. 20. Ed. Bryennio, Constant. 1875.

I have not thought it necessary to adopt the conjecture of Bryennius, that for πιστεύομεν we should read πιστεύωμεν. If any change is to be made, I should propose to read yoûv instead of oûv, and I have translated accordingly. If might hazard another conjecture, it would be to read Bλeye for eßλaye in last clause but one-"the Divine discernment would have beheld the spirit not truly righteous."

all-beneficent Creator, is a difficulty which has ever perplexed the human mind. Even in the minds of the devout, who might feel willing to stand mute in the presence of the fact of its existence, in the faith that all is right and best as far as God's agency is concerned, the questionings of reason will ever and anon present themselves; while to minds less disposed to acquiesce in this belief, the fact has given rise to disbelief in all religion, or to forms of religion worse than no religious belief at all. That there is a limit beyond which our minds cannot penetrate in this inquiry is indeed plain enough; but if within this limit we can see sufficient to make it likely that if we could see farther we should see more to satisfy our doubts and remove our difficulties, we shall perhaps feel that the inquiry is not without its use.

As an obstacle to religious belief, the existence of evil does not indeed seem to me to touch the question of a Creator, though it may affect the view we take of His character. So far as human reason enforces the belief in a supreme cause of all things, an evil world-a world much worse than this appears to the greatest pessimist— requires a Creator no less than a world of good unmixed, or a far better world than actually exists, if we have any right to suppose that a better world, taken all in all, could have existed, as far as the action of the Creator was concerned. I may here advert to the well-known position of Hume that if it be granted that the existence of the world demands the acknowledgment of an Author of Nature, we have no right to ascribe to that Author of Nature any attributes beyond what were needed for the production of such a world as actually exists. In regard to this I shall only remark, that even if we grant the

truth of this position, it would still lead to the belief of the virtual omnipotence and all-wisdom of God, provided we admit, as it is reasonable to suppose, that, regarding it in the full extent of its vastness and duration, and the comprehensiveness of the Divine purposes, it really is the best that He was able to produce. For it is to be supposed that a Being working for his own satisfaction would make his work, taken all in all, the best in his power. I suppose we shall readily perceive that if there be an Author of all things, whatever that Being could not do Himself, He could not enable another to do, so far as power is concerned, for this would be practically doing it Himself. By the supposition, therefore, if there is anything that in respect to power God could not do, that must be practically and virtually impossible, as there is, and can be, no Being in existence able to do it. I say practically and virtually, because it may very well be that we are able to see no contradiction in the supposition of its being done; as in the case of the ancient royal Spanish astronomer, who said that if he had been by at the creation of the heavenly bodies, he could have given some useful hints to the Almighty. I make this remark on the position of the famous sceptic with special reference to the power and wisdom of God. Mr. Mill supposes that the evidences of

*

* Halley, in his Preface to Newton's Principia, remarks:-" Systematis Mundani Compagem elegantissimam ita tandem patefecit et penitus perspectandam dedit; ut nec ipse, si nunc revivisceret, Rex Alphonsus vel simplicitatem vel harmoniæ gratiam in eâ desideraret. Alphonso X., surnamed the Wise, was a great astrologer, which in those days meant an astronomer; and after he had deeply considered the fabrick of the world, the following saying of his, reported by Lipsius, denotes him to have been none of the most pious, viz., That if God had advised with him in the creation, he could have given Him good counsel." See Jeremy Collier's Great Historical Dictionary, s. v. Alphonsus the Tenth.

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contrivance which indicate an intelligent Creator are themselves a proof of the limited power of God, as omnipotence could have made them unnecessary. Matter and force he sees no reason for thinking to have been created, but independent existences, and in the intractableness of these and the contrivances to overcome it, he sees evidences of this limitation of Divine power. Of the independent existence of matter and force I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. But for the present I shall only say, that no reasonable believer in religion supposes that the exercise of the power of God in creation has not been carried on under limitations. Creation itself implies limitation, unless we should suppose that God created Himself over again in his creatures. Limitation enters into the very conception of material things, and limitation of force seems necessary for the orderly working of a material and moral world. It in no way, therefore, impugns the ability of God to say that He worked in creation under limitations, but they were limitations imposed on Himself for the very ends He had in view-ends not confined to the material universe, but embracing the moral and intellectual world also. This is enough for the present in regard to the alleged deficiency of God's power. Of His goodness I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. What I have now said suffices for my present purpose.

Now, we can conceive a creation without rational beings, as this earth is supposed to have been during the vast periods in which there was animal life, but in which we have no evidence that man existed. It would not have been such a noble creation as the present. Or we might conceive the existence of rational beings, without freedom of choice and will, mere reasoning machines. I suppose