essence of evil is eliminated from it; it becomes strength and confidence in the soul of him whose will overcomes it.

There is no harm in the consciousness of a temptation to sin. Harm begins only as we yield; and so virtue begins. as we resist; and the perfection of character is reached as we overcome the evil, and drive out the sense of temptation. And this is the providential use of evil. It gives something to conquer-something to overcome, and in the struggle for the victory, our virtue becomes heroic.

How explicit is the testimony of history-the lives of great and good men-on this point. We can not name a person in all the annals of the world, whose character commands general admiration, but what he was compelled to fight evil in some form; his very excellence is a conquesta triumph over evil. Luther, Washington, and Kossuth, are not born great and heroic; nor do they become such by any easy process; they are the product of a conflict with evil the evil of superstition, of political oppression, of tyranny and wrong.

We have visited sections of country where the climate is almost uniformly mild, where the soil is strangely produc tive, and tilled with very slight toil; where the temporal bounties of nature seem almost spontaneous. In such regions, to use a common yet expressive phrase, it is "easy to live." With very slight exertion, and with comparatively little occasion for prudence and skill, the temporal wants are easily satisfied. Yet here we have usually found the log-cabin, the dilapidated fence, the look of shiftlessness, the absence of enterprise, and we have found but too generally indolence, ignorance, and gross and dissipated habits a general lack of all the elements of a manly, heroic character. In such regions, physical life has no battle to fight, no victory to achieve. On the other hand, we have visited sterile regions, where the soil is hard, and refuses to produce except at the price of much toil and patience and skill; where the winters are long and cold; where the whole aspect of nature is that of a grim, threatening foe-which the inhabitant must fight daily for the means of subsistence. Yet here we have found a hardy, tough, calculating, intelligent, and usually a virtuous people; with good houses and cheerful firesides; with school houses and churches; with books and newspapers; and all

the indications of thrift and developed manhood. Here physical life was a daily battle; and the utmost strength of human souls finds its incitement and achieves its victory in the development and maturity of noble manhood. We can conceive of a person retaining all the innocence of infancy -reaching the years of manhood with no knowledge of sin, no consciousness of temptation. But such a person would command no respect. He might be harmless, inoffensive, mild and gentle; but he would present no real virtue-no commanding traits of character. To have any thing above innocence-to have any solid traits of character, we must struggle for them; we must wrest them from reluctant nature; they must be the prize of valor-the harvest of victory-the triumph over evil.

We concede that the existence of evil is a mysterythat it furnishes a problem which human intelligence has thus far failed to solve. But with even one palpable assurance that it become an occasion of good, we need not despair. If time vindicates providence in one great particular -eternity, we may trust, will vindicate providence in all. The existence of evil but demands the exercise of faithfaith in God as the Sovereign Ruler under whose care and protection all events must finally eventuate in good.

G. H. E

ART. XXIII.

Our Late Publisher.

WHEN, in preparing the matter for the July number of the Quarterly of 1861, the melancholy task of paying an humble tribute to the memory of the first Editor, fell to our lot, we little thought that in the next July number we should be called upon to pay a similar tribute to the memory of the first Publisher. In executing the former task, we had frequent interviews with Mr. Tompkins; and some of the thoughts then presented were suggested by him. Could he and ourselves, with prophetic eye, have foreseen

the task which Providence now assigns us in what we are about to write, how strange, how solemn those interviews would have been! Wisely is it ordered that no man shall know what things a day, much less a year, will bring to pass. At the funeral services of the departed saint, which filled so many eyes with tears in the Chapel on Walnut Hill, Mr. Tompkins was present-a mourner second in his grief only to the immediate relatives of the lamented dead. In little less than a year, the mourner followed his friend; and funeral rites were performed in the church Edifice where, since its erection, the deceased had been a worshipper.

The company of mourners was, in a large degree, the same at the obsequies of the Publisher as at those of the Editor, and with reason. Dr. Ballou and Mr. Tompkins sustained, each to the other, peculiar relations. They were both, each in a distinct sphere, at the head of our denominational literature. For a long term of years the thoughts presented by the one were distributed by the other. The work of the one made the work of the other possible. The service which each has rendered the Universalist denomination-a service, in both cases, which we are in no danger of over-estimating-was effected through their mutual cooperation. The thinking brain and the business hand found indispensable aid, each in the other. We need not say how hearty, how sincere, how enduring was the friendly tie which united the Writer and the Publisher. From the first to the last, that friendship was never for a moment broken-not even chilled. Mr. Tompkins felt a veneration for his friend which bordered upon, if it did not reach, idolatry; while his warm, generous, constant affection was a fountain of gladness to the other, who knew full well how to prize the companionship and sympathy of appreciative friendship.

The disease which terminated their earthly career was in both cases similar-similar alike in its nature, the insidiousness of its approach, and the relentless certainty with which it moved to the fatal issue. The remains of each now slumber in the shades of Mount Auburn. United by so many endearing ties while upon the earth, it is well that they are not separated as they slumber in its bosom.

The Universalist denomination owes a debt of gratitude to the memory of Abel Tompkins. Next to the pulpit, the

most efficient agency in the spreading of truth, is the press; and in some respects the press is the more efficient of the two, for the printed word often goes where the spoken word would not be tolerated. And in every department of the press, except that of the weekly periodical, Mr. Tompkins was for years our most zealous, most enterprising, most successful laborer. His taste, business-tact, and resolute will worked a wholesome revolution in the style of our denominational books. His taste revolted at the uncouth garb in which the thoughts of our earlier writers had been presented to the public-a garb which, it cannot be doubted, too often had the effect of turning away the not unreasonably fastidious eye. The "Inquiries of Balfour did, in their day, a great work-hundreds of Universalists date their conversion to the truth, with their first reading of those books. Had they found at the first, as at a later date, a Tompkins for a publisher, possibly when we write hundreds, we might write thousands. To persons already interested in the doctrine, the mechanical appearance of the book may make but slight difference; but the way in which we instinctively pass by an uncouth volume, assures us that to those not interested-to those who are to receive their first impression-the mechanical appearance is a weighty consideration. In this particular, we repeat, Mr. Tompkins did the denomination and the world an immense service.

Further, we doubt if any other publisher has done a tithe of what he did in fostering the literary talents of our people. He knew, by instinct, who had "the gift," and he knew how to stimulate the gift to its proper work. By encouraging words, by patronage, and by a critical taste, which, in correcting the aberrations of the untrained faculty, was at once delicate and frank, he secured a company of writers whose literary efforts have been of vast service to our cause.

The literary services of woman have been of especial service in the spread of Universalist doctrines. In the early period of Murray, Ballou, and Balfour, our literature was wisely, we may say was necessarily, controversial. The field was to be won rather than planted. The seed was to be sown rather than nurtured. Hence, our authors gave the world arguments, rejoinders, expositions. It will not be denied, that the more positive and directly practical

features of Universalist theology, were kept, necessarily so, somewhat in abeyance. The more emotional qualities of the female mind and heart were especially needed to temper the severity of polemical strife, and to bring out the devotional element, to the nurture of which a genial faith is so peculiarly adapted. No one saw the need of woman's gentle and persuasive efforts more clearly than Mr. Tompkins; and great, very great, is the good he has done as the patron of a female denominational literature. He commenced his business career, indeed, with the purchase of the Ladies' Repository, and our people may justly feel a pride in the literary excellence as well as religious spirit and aim of a large proportion of its contents. It has, in its peculiar way, done a service that no other periodical could have accomplished. As we recall the names of our female writers, we are surprised at the number who owe to the publisher of the Repository, and the opportunity its columns afforded, the incentive and the fostering care which have made their names conspicuous, and their labors efficient.

In the department of Biography, our literature is large, and, for most part, useful in a high degree. There are few better biographies among any people than those of Wolley and Stephen R. Smith. The lesson of fidelity, of devotion to principle, of disinterested toil for the good of man, which these two volumes teach, cannot be estimated at a value too high. We have many volumes of biography of almost equal value. No publisher has done so much in bringing this species of literature before our public as Abel Tompkins. Let those bless his memory whose hearts have been moved by the touching incidents so abundant in our denominational biographies.

Early in life, our friend was a pioneer in the Sunday School cause. He was first among the few who formed the nucleus of what is now one of the most prosperous Sunday Schools in the denomination-the one belonging to the School Street parish. But it is of his connection with our Sunday School literature that we would more particularly speak. He was among the first to see the need of good manuals, text-books, and libraries; and he saw that most of these were to be-they, as yet, were unwritten. How largely he has contributed to this most useful part of our