His impotency" (Pearson on the Creed, art. vi.). "Deus omnipotens qui id solum non potest, quod non vult" (S. Augustine). We cannot deny the sorrowful events which surround our life, but it is greatly in our power to ameliorate them for ourselves and for others; and not only is Virtue more exempt than Vice from the ills of life, but always contains within herself an energy to resist them; and we well know that whether in allowing evil, or taking evil away, God will not act in opposition to our own moral sense. Glorification of all things, beatification of every intelligence, may be fairly placed amongst the essentials; but evil, as the product of freedom in rebellion, could not be a matter of fate; and, though foreseen, was not in the Almighty's plan, but against it; otherwise freedom were not freedom. poet well puts it in the name of God— "They themselves decreed Their own revolt, not I; if I foreknew, Our Paradise Lost, iii. 16. Evil, then, is abnormal; which we may further see by Butler's thought: "Man may act according to that inclination which for the present happens to be strongest, and yet act in a way disproportionate to and violate his real proper nature . . . such an action is in the strictest and most proper sense unnatural" ("Sermon on Human Nature"). Origen and Gregory of Nyssa regarded evil as oùk ov; thus they avoided the production of evil by God. "Deus ultor peccati, non auctor." Evil, not finding a remedy in the original constitution of things, necessitated new and further displays of Divine wisdom and mercy and might. Müller ("The Christian Doctrine of Sin ") wrote, "The exclusion of sin from the Divine causation by the doctrine of Redemption represents an act of Divine grace: which, according to its subjective side, realizes itself as forgiveness of sins; according to its objective side, becomes mediated by the expiatory sacrifice of the Redeemer." As Shakespeare says, "The strawberry groweth under the nettle." This divine and saving grace was manifested by Christ, the Lamb of God, appointed before the foundation of the world as the Divine Sacrifice for sin. Origen (Hom. i. Levit.) says, "The altar was at Jerusalem, but the victim salted the whole world." These truths became Revelation in Holy Scripture; and become part of our life in that all-embracing providential scheme which, little by little, is conducting our earth to a greater than the original good; the whole spiritual process allowing perfecting and securing freedom to responsible intelligence. Regardez, de près, et déjà vous reconnâitrez une main réparatrice" (Le Maistre, "Soirées de St. Petersbourg "). If science has a new Gospel; a better remedial, allembracing, providential scheme, for the removal of deception and degradation from mankind; we will reverentially listen. 66 Meanwhile, we wait for that miracle completing all miracles bringing the world and worlds into a state so refined that the dust of our streets shall be as dust of gold-a glorification of nature, of life, of intelligence. The Glorification of Nature. The present earth is a microphone: its sounds, that we thought were stilled in space and time, reverberate through infinitude for ever. He who stealthily walks in sin, that his footsteps may fall light as the tread of a fly, will find every one loud as war-horse tramp. In vain did Macbeth say "Thou sun and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear The very stones prate of my whereabout." He who, doing good, telleth not to left hand what the right performs, shall have the good proclaimed for universal renown. In all matter, in all life, in all intelligence, are seeds; "Semina, Primordia, rerum Principia ;" LUCRET. that everything may, according to its kind, produce a Che l'uno e l'altro eternalmente spira Senza gustar di lui chi ciò rimira." DANTE, Paradiso. The Glorification of Life. Life-so warm, so active, so sensitive, so low, so high, so minute, so majestic, of which the microscopic points may be far higher and grander than those we count the middle term; life-reaching down from Him, in whom all life is, to that in which life is as though it were not; shall quicken and glorify in every rhythm of existence till the universe is quick with the life of God. The low life working blindly into sight; the dead, not yet life, warming into lively glow; the structureless gaining structure; the indifferentiated winning differentiation of part for particular and special use; miracles of vitality. These are only the small parts of our bliss. There may be crowns of splendour, there may be trees of unfading beauty, there may be "riches of Heaven's pavement trodden gold," gardens of loveliness, palaces of proud and stately decoration, rivers flowing in unceasing gladness. "Devenere locos lætos, et amoena virecta Fortunatorum nemorum, sedesque beatas." VIRGIL, Eneid, vi. One trembles at the Divinity in the Old Book declaring that we men, now being tried and purified for such a splendid destiny, are taken from the ground; and one rejoices in the fact that science has found it true; and, probably, will soon verify every other statement. Our fear and our joy make us better men. The wonders, wrought in us, do not stand alone, prodigies are everywhere the fins of the fish are the limbs of the lizard and parts of the bird by a Divinely wonderful advance! Other marvels-we trace the eye, the ear, the mouth, the brain, from rudiments in creatures only beginning to be; so that eye, ear, mouth, brain, are beautiful and in telligible products wrought in and by things without intelligence; and these products are in adjustment with an outer world of light-of sound-of flavours—of intricate design-all so interwoven with action and counteraction, equilibrium and ceaseless activity, that only Might everywhere, only Wisdom everywhere, only Life everywhere, are the due correlation of a life and universe so miraculously wonderful, so mysteriously advancing to a future so glorious! The Glorification of Intelligence. Intelligence will become yet more clear, far-sighted, allrevealing the light of God. By it even now we overtake suns and stars, with swifter velocity surpass their speed, σε ὠσεὶ πτέρον ἠὲ νόημα” HOMER, Odyssey, H. 36. with more might subdue their course, by measurement define their limits. "Liberæ sunt cogitationes nostræ, et quæ volunt sic intuentur, ut ea cernimus quæ videmus" (Cicero, "Pro. Mil.," ch. 29). Intelligence is the bright ladder of our ascent from grade to grade of being, from height to height of understanding, from world to world of existence, from the corporeal to the spiritual, from the natural to the Supernatural, from the creature to the Creator, from time to Eternity, from space to Infinitude. "Wie alles sich zum Ganzen webt, Eins in dem andern wirkt und lebt! Wie Himmelskräfte auf und nieder steigen, Mit segenduftenden Schwingen Vom Himmel durch die Erde dringen, Faust, Act i. As the ascent of thought reveals a wonderful future, |