injury, real or imagined baseness in character. Nay, the very word hateful is used to describe that which is wrong or bad, and when we say that an action or a feeling is hateful, we are understood to mean that it is vicious or sinful. Now, certainly we have here a fact which does much to explain the end for which human nature was designed. Once see clearly that the soul, even of the wicked, cannot regard as odious or detestable any being until truly or falsely it has persuaded itself that that being has been unjust, ungenerous; in some way or other wicked, and so worthy of dislike,-once see this, and what is the inference? Why, clearly that the soul was, by its very constitution, intended to venerate and pursue goodness, as the great object of its life. Just as the Pharisees of old attempted to fasten some base charge upon Jesus; to excite suspicion as to the source of his marvellous power; to persuade the multitude that he could not be a divine messenger, because he observed not the ritual law so punctiliously as themselves. Just so has it always been. The victim of cruelty and hatred is first blackened by charges, true or untrue, which destroy his claim to be regarded as virtuous and worthy of esteem, in order to warrant the enmity with which he is treated. Therefore, if man can abhor only that which is, or that which he suspects to be, base and wrong, this is proof that man was made for righteousness.

Though these facts are not novel, yet they deserve serious consideration. As already said, men need nothing so much as a clear, ever present idea of the great end for which they were made. It is all important, therefore, to enforce and keep fresh the conviction that human nature was designed to love and grow in goodness. This conviction will preserve us from despondency, when we are most oppressed by the amount and the universality of evil in the world. Strange and mysterious as sin with its wide and fearful ravages may seem, we should have a steadfast faith that sin is not that for which man is made-not that which is to be his inheritance, the food of his immortal nature; but rather that his real affinities and attractions, when fairly showing themselves, prove that he was intended for the pursuit of virtue. This conviction, again, will, in proportion to its vigor and warmth, inspire us with pa

tience and hope in our intercourse with our fellow men; it will teach us why we are commanded to honor all men ; why the salvation of humanity from its deepest degradation, is a work to be entered upon cheerfully, and pursued with courage. For, in the most corrupt, and the most base, there are sentiments, aspirations, and indestructible principles which are on the side of goodness. Their nature craves truth, and was not made for sin, and so it ever deserves respect, and is ever to be regarded as capable of rising, be it never so slowly and gradually, from its apparent death in trespasses, to enter upon the unending life of righteousness.

This conviction will also be a safe-guard and a motive to urge us on in the pursuit of virtue. Let the heart be thoroughly persuaded, that we were made for goodness, even as the eye was made for seeing and the ear for hearing; that our being is so constituted, that ultimately, we can obtain peace only as we obtain moral excellence, and grow in Christian character, and in spite of all temptations and allurements, learn to abhor that which is evil, and cleave, with our most energetic will, and utmost affections to that which is good. Let the heart be thoroughly persuaded of this, which is as true as the light of the sun is bright, and then can our chosen course be on the whole no other than that which runs in the pleasant way of wisdom, and keeps in the path of the just. Whilst, then, we do not overlook the terrible mass of sin, and the terrible evil of sin, in the world; whilst we confess the weakness, and perils, and debasements of humanity; whilst we guard against the false notion that we are to be made righteous without effort, and put into heaven, or have heaven put into us, without endeavor, work and prayer, on our part; whilst we set aside and refuse to be deceived by views that would lesson the horror of vice, or persuade us that felicity can come in any way, except as the consequence and accompaniment of exertion to obtain moral health, exaltation and excellence-whilst we thus protect the soul, still we should fix on an immovable basis in the depths of the soul, and feed ever, by every thought and argument which serves to strengthen it, the faith that the spirit of man is to reach perfection and bliss, even as it rises and grows, and only as it rises and grows, in all the beau

ty of Christian virtue. Thus fix and thus feed this faith; forever are its protection and its encouragement needed. Oftentimes, as all alas must know, in this stage of being, in which we are hardly born into existence-which is less than infancy compared with the eternity before us—our own weaknesses, and follies, and sins would persuade us to call in question the high destiny of man, tempt us to believe for a time, almost, that the struggle after lofty and pure virtue is a vain struggle; oftentimes thoughts of the ignorance, degradation and brutality which seem the lot of such vast masses of humanity; oftentimes observation of the wide spread iniquity which seems to be sowed and reaped with every generation, even as grain is strown in spring, and harvests gathered in autumn; oftentimes this will cause the soul to indulge morbidly, or despondingly, in doubts of the worth of human nature; and at such seasons, to prevent despair of ourselves or contempt for our brethren, to give patience, hope and zeal, and to sustain trust in a good God, we must have very near to our souls the incontrovertible proofs that man was indeed made for goodness. All have read that fine and touching story of the poor sailor's widow, who, in her solitary cottage on the rock-bound coast, kept burning every night the single taper at her window, to preserve mariners from a ship-wreck, such as that in which her own husband perished just as he was rejoicing that he had overcome all the perils of the sea and was near his home. Like to that lone lamp, be the faith of which we have spoken; shining out, a very star of hope, through all the dark and tempest hours of the soul; revealing, as a ray of light from above, the truth that for man the "way of righteousness is the way of life."

ART. V.

Retribution in Natural Theology.

There is a class of minds that despise all the helps to faith which are furnished by the deductions of natural theol

ogy, and rest on what they are pleased to call the truths of consciousness, the revelations of their intuitions. There are other minds to whom these deductions are, to the teachings of Scripture, what private prayer is to the temple service, an awakening of soul, a preparation for the highest use of the worship that answers the social needs of the soul. There is yet another class who are afraid of natural theology, as though it were a rival to Revelation, rejecting, with something of scorn, Lord Bacon's idea, that it " opens our understanding to the genuine spirit of the Scriptures, but also unlocks our belief, so that we may enter upon the serious contemplation of the divine power, the characters of which are so deeply graven in the works of the creation." To these we must add yet another class, who are tortured with the uses made of natural theology, by the advocates of rational religion; and, premising the fundamental idea of their creed, the total depravity of man, they find in natural theology "the demand and demonstration" of endless punishment! To the intellectual gymnastics and moral gyrations of this latter class, we propose to give a little attention.

It is no ghost that has wakened them to the task they have undertaken. They fight not "as one that beateth the air;" for the impression made by every work that deals with the facts of creation, with philosophical acuteness combined with true reverence, has favored the idea that evil is but the present aspect of things; evil resolves itself into good by every enlargement of thought; it has nothing to gain from the progress of science, and the disposal which the advancement of knowledge has made of a thousand accusations, prophesies what is to become of many more now held up against nature, by those whose religion is to believe the worst. "Each discovery contracts still more the empire of evil; each ray of light presses down its darkness still deeper. It is an usurper who must fall from his throne, before the full light of truth."1

No master work has appeared that has pressed Nature into the service of the awful dogma that evil is absolute and ultimate, and the conviction has been felt by millions, which was once confessed by a theological opponent, to one of our ministry," So far as nature is concerned, I

1 L' Aimé Martin's "Education of Mothers."

allow that Universalism has the argument." The origin of evil is still an open question, but the uses of evil are magnified by every new insight into the economy of nature; and one of the most interesting fields of thought is opened by the idea of Dr. Crombie, that it is through the medium of evil that man arrives at the knowledge of a wise and designing Cause. He shows how we are impressed by ingenuity displayed in a complicated piece of mechanism, because we have a conception of unfit materials, or of an improper form of parts, or an incongruous arrangement, and can admire the power of selection displayed by the designer; and so in the constitution of the universe. is," he says, "from the selection of fit means to beneficial ends, out of numberless possibilities of a contrary tendency, that we infer the intelligence and benevolence of the Author. As from uninterupted light, we should have no idea of darkness, so from a state of things uniformly good, we should have no conception of evil or imperfection, and therefore no evidence of design or benevolence."

"It

Now, manifestly, the impression made by all such arguments is antagonistic to the whole force of the partialistic theology, that maintains the endlessness of evil, taking it out of Providence that might make it a ministry to a benevolent end,—the end secured, evil disappearing; and giving it a self-perpetuating power, by which it must be a thunder-cloud in the universe forever ;-nay, all thunder-clouds have their ministry of good, and we are left without a comparison of what evil is thought to be, by those who use it to reason away the universal love of God.

In opposition to the general tenor of the teachings of nature, certain speculations concerning the moral constitution of man, are set up. The length to which, till recently, theologians were content to go, may be seen in Chalmers' Bridgewater Treatise, a work of ability, but most singularly contradictory where the popular theology was to be helped. Evidently dissatisfied with this, recent writers of the same school of dogmas, have stepped forward to make up by presumptions what they lacked in facts; a "great gulf" being placed between their premises and conclusions. As an instance in point, let us refer to an article in the "Biblical Repository," for January, 1851, which is the conclusion of a former article, entitled