Incentives to Virtue. 285 



destroy men by their over-indulgence, When men 

 are so situated that they never know what it is to 

 labor with mind or body, they are generally found 

 walking in that broad road that leads to misery and 



:h. An Eden would be fitted for a race that had 

 no tendency to over-indulgence and sin. But this 

 world as it is, with its thorns and thistles, its blight 

 and mildew, its frosts and tempests, its whole ma- 

 chii -landing labor, that man should eat his 



id by the sweat ce, is the best possible 



world for u- now constituted. A world 



demanding no t - only fitted fot i 



Hut it may be asked : \Vhy should man be so 

 constituted, that all these relations producing SO 

 mil- ring should be needed to induce him to 



choose virtue instead of Vice object we have 



in view md of us an answer to this 



question, nor does the place I occupy allow me to 

 ent : field of theology to give my 



opinion of the origin of sin and suffering in the 

 world. They are here. We accept the fact, and 

 simply inquire if the constitution of man and of this 

 physical universe are such as to encourage men in 

 vicious courses or to check them. On this point 

 we think nothing- can be plainer than that the path 

 of virtue is the path of peace. And if we accept all 

 these relations as established by a personal Being, 

 we can infer nothing with greater certainty than 

 that He is actuated by love to man and hatred of 

 sin ; that He has so constituted us and the world 



