new and original facts and directing-powers in nature and in life. We have reason to be glad that the majesty of Heaven is partly entrusted to our keeping, and that as we follow the instincts of a sanctified life, mankind will witness the display of divine qualities in human actions, and give unto God the praise.

G. F. J.

ART. XXII.

Evil Often a Stimulant to Good.

THE existence of evil, in any form, in a world where a God of infinite goodness reigns, is acknowledged, on all hands, to be the great mystery. However much Christians of various sects differ on certain points of theology, they all agree in acknowledging themselves puzzled when they reflect upon the great amount of iniquity which seems to flourish almost unchecked, the intense and varied suffering which invades numberless homes; and all this under the government of a God who must be supposed to hate all these wrongs, and who has the power to extinguish them. Give any man, of average goodness of heart, infinite power, and he would put an end to evil before the sun could set. God has this power, but does not exert it for the prompt removal of evil. On the contrary, for six thousand years -according to the shortest theory of chronology-he has suffered evil to abound, almost as much-so far as human intelligence can perceive-as if he were entirely powerless to stay its progress. This, we repeat, is the great mystery -to solve which, has been the vain endeavor of human intellects for many thousand years.

Fortunately, a great fact of a directly practical character has always been clear to all healthy minds. The fact that God permits men to do evil has never availed as an excuse for doing evil. No one has ever been able to say,-" Because God does not prevent me from robbing my neighbor, therefore I am at liberty to commit such an atrocity."

There have been instances in which sophists have endeavored to reason in this way; and excuses for sin have been so ingeniously framed as to perplex very clear intellects. But the common sense of mankind has never been imposed upon, or even confused, by such sophistry. However the head may have got bewildered, the heart has always been clear and positive; and men have spontaneously assumed that sin is hateful to God, and that no excuse for committing it, based upon any relation which God himself bears to it, can be allowed to influence human conduct in a single particular.

But while the course of human duty as respects the existence of evil, has always been sufficiently clear, and while the fact that evil exists has thus far been a problem which human intellect is unable to solve; still, the intelligent, thinking, Christian mind and heart are loath to admit that the existence of evil is an accident in the creation. Accident always implies some sort of weakness or infirmity; it implies carelessness, or short-sightedness, or mistake, on the part of him to whose work the accident happens. Of course we cannot assume that any weakness or infirmity pertains to God; and hence we cannot feel at liberty to regard the presence of evil as accidental under the government of the Supreme Being.

Perhaps the theory which finds the largest number of believers, and best satisfies alike the mind and heart, is that which regards evil neither as accidental nor as specially purposed, but rather as incidental to the progress of creation. The rubbish which gathers around and within a temple in the course of its construction, and which is always so unsightly in itself, is not accidental; for the master-builder anticipated it from the first-knew that it must accompany his labor. Neither does it enter into his specific purpose. It does not form a part of his structure. His original plan did not embrace it. It is simply incidental— comes with the progress of the work, but the temple completed, it is to be removed or destroyed.

There are, however, facts in the experience of almost every person which prove that evil, in some cases at least, is something more than an incident. It is undoubtedly the greatest of paradoxes to assert that a thing which is abhorrent to God, which every human soul is commanded to

shun on peril of ruin and despair; that a thing against which the prophets of God have directed their fiercest invective; to make an end of which, Christ came, and suffered, and died; and for committing which, the severest judgments of heaven are not only threatened but executed,

it is indeed a marvellous paradox to assert that such a thing can have a use-a mission for good in the affairs of this world. And yet the person hardly lives, who has reached years of discretion, without an experience of the fact for in some sense a fact it is-that evil becomes an instrument of good.

We shall now attempt to point out at least one particular in which the benevolent uses of evil are, it seems to us, unmistakable. We shall look at the mission, or at least the effect of evil, considered merely as a stimulant to the best faculties of human nature. The difference between men is not so much in their original endowments, as in the degree in which these endowments are developed. Of course men differ materially in what are called natural gifts. At one extreme there are idiots, both moral and intellectual, whom no amount of training can ever lift, in this world at least, into intelligence or virtue. On the other hand, there are at the other extreme, intellectual and spiritual giants-souls of vast capacity, whom no misfortune, no lack of care or of education, can keep down; who rise by native force above the average level of their fellows; who break, by their strong will, all opposing circumstances, and convert all hindrances into helps. But these are exceptions to the very general rule. The great majority of men and women are, by nature, very nearly alike. And with these, the difference is not in what God has made them, but in what they have made themselves. Very few, let us trust, need complain of any special lack of native gift. Most men can be great and good if they will bring out into character, into life, into action, what there is within them. They want opportunities, incentives to action, stimulants for the soul, far more than they want native powers, whether of heart or understanding.

Now, strange to say, evil in some form often does an important service to man in arousing, bringing into action and training his spiritual powers. Of course, in saying this it is assumed that man shall look upon evil as really such;

that he shall put himself into antagonism with it; that he shall feel it to be a dangerous thing, a thing that he must resist with all his might-an enemy that he must pursue and crush, and crush forever. Let a man view any evil in this light, and fight it in this way, and he shall find wonderful strength, culture, and spiritual growth, as the result of his struggle.

Take an example in illustration. A young man finds a fascination in bad company. The intoxicating cup has for him a mysterious charm; and he finds the temptation strong to mingle in society where dissipation and jovial conversation, sallies of wit, exciting, yet immoral stories, abound. If now he yields to this temptation, he is ruined -if the evil conquers him, he is lost. And if he finds. himself too weak, too irresolute, too infirm of purpose to maintain his integrity against such corrupting influences, he must shun them as he would the devouring pestilence. For him, in no sense, can the evil be a means or occasion of good. If, however, while fully sensible of the fascination of the evil, while keenly alive to the force of the temptation, he nevertheless has the will and the willingness to resist itthe strength and the perseverance to master it;-in this case the evil shall be the occasion to him of the greatest good. It will call out his power. It will put all his energies to the test. It will awaken every dormant faculty. It will stimulate him to a noble achievement, the mastery of himself. It will be the occasion of his spiritual development; and acquainting him with his strength, give him that confidence which is essential to manliness and dignity of character.

All the force there is in evil-the full measure of its tempting influence-considered as so much power, passes into the character of the man who resists it successfully; it passes into him, only its nature is changed by the process from evil to good. Every obstacle in life must either hurt or help a man-must either add to, or else subtract from, his natural strength. One person may perish in the labor of scaling a cliff or crossing a desert; while another person shall receive a wonderful physical training from the same process. If his frame is by nature weak, and there is a lack of the vital energy-a lack of the "nervous fluid," so called-it would be hazardous for him to risk severe

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exposure either to obstacles of climate or of soil. might perish in the wilderness. But if while weak in body, he is not constitutionally so-if while unused to severe trials of strength, there is nevertheless a sufficiency of latent power only waiting for the occasion to be brought into ser vice, for all such, arduous enterprise, whether in the warm sterile deserts of Africa, or across the cold wastes of the Rocky Mountain barriers, or amid the freezing terrors of the Arctic night-the trial will but educate the whole man, bring out his muscular force, and make him heroic in mind and strong and resolute in will.

The veteran of a revolution-one who has faced an enemy and not quailed-one who, under the inspiration of a great cause, has willingly suffered from hunger, toil, and perhaps bloody wounds; such a one is always an interesting spectacle, for into his blood, bone and muscle have flowed all the forces that have been resisted and conquered by his brave will and courageous arm.

The children of Israel in Egypt, fed and pampered by all the luxuries of that genial soil, unused to severe toil, and hence degenerate alike in body, mind and heart,--such a people never could have entered the Land of Promise. The fierce Amorite, from his mountain fastnesses, rugged in the brave strength which mountain freedom always creates, would have vanquished the soft, irresolute Hebrew at a blow. A new generation of Hebrews, with the strength and courage which the privations and labors of the desert could create a new generation of Hebrews, educated by forty years of warfare against the forces of nature, in its most inhospitable forms,-only such as these could drive before them, alike the barbarians of the mountains, and put to flight the warriors within the walls of Jericho.

It is a blessed truth, that if we will, we may transmute all our temptations into moral power. The very foe which seeks to stab our integrity, we may metamorphose into our ally in the cause of virtue. The writings of fiction often describe duels in which the party vanquished in fight becomes ever after the bosom friend of his assailant; as prompt to defend and protect him, as he had been eager to slay him. It is so with evil when once fought and completely crushed. In its overthrow, it is transmuted-the