ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



the final beneficence of the forces that rule this 

 universe. Not to solve the mysteries, but to see that 

 they are insoluble, and to rest content in that con- 

 clusion, is the task we set ourselves here. 



Evidently the tide of life is still at the flood on 

 this planet; its checks and counter-currents arise in- 

 evitably in a universe whose forces are always, and 

 always must be, in unstable equilibrium. 



The love of the Eternal for mankind, and for all 

 other forms of life, is not a parental love — not the 

 love of the mother for her child, or of the father for 

 his son; it is more like the love which a general has 

 for his army; he is to lead that army through hard- 

 ships, through struggles, through sufferings, and 

 through death, but he is leading it to victory. Many 

 will perish that others may live; the battle is being 

 won daily. Evolution has triumphed. It has been a 

 long and desperate battle, but here we are and we 

 find life sweet. The antagonistic forces which have 

 been overcome have become sources of power. The 

 vast army of living forms moving down the geologic 

 ages has been made strong through the trials and 

 obstacles it has surmounted, till now we behold it in 

 the fullness of its power with man at its head. 



II 

 There is a paragraph in Emerson's Journal on 

 Providence, written when he was twenty-one, which 

 is as broad and as wise and as heterodox as any- 



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