282 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



beside which it is shown forth as beauty ? Nay, may 

 it not be affirmed that the plan of the Deity would not 

 have been a perfect one if it did not include imper- 

 fection, nor a wise one if it admitted not of folly, nor a 

 good one if evil did not form a part of it ? Is there 

 not something like this implied in the remarkable text 

 which informs us that the weakness of God is mightier 

 than the strength of men, and his foolishness more ad- 

 mirable than their wisdom ? ' All which plausible 

 balancing of advantage and disadvantage, Miss Eraser 

 brings front to front with the sheer mystery of pain. 

 ' Allowing/ she writes, f that the actual contrast between 

 good and evil, ease and suffering, increased our value for 

 the ease and the good, how reconcile with our ideas of 

 justice the fact that there are thousands born to suffer 

 continual pain and to be depraved for ever? Two 

 thousand gladiators once lay expiring in the Roman 

 Amphitheatre, .but does it reconcile us to the fact that 

 hundreds of thousands of spectators were delighted with 

 the scene ? ' This metaphysician, for all her petite 

 figure, waxen clearness of complexion, and childlike 

 appearance, has not, to my knowledge, received a satis- 

 factory answer to her question either from Hugh Miller 

 or any one else. Such a lady-love was capable of 

 furnishing intellectual diamond dust of very superior 

 quality for the sharpening of a man's wits. 



Miss Eraser's intercourse with Miller, the relation in 

 which he w T as now placed with her, was beneficial to 

 him in another way. It broke up the theory of life 

 which he had formed for himself, and replaced it by one 

 of a more masculine character. Profoundly imbued as 

 he was with the ambition of self-culture, and loving 

 praise with the ardour of a born literary man, he was 

 nevertheless firmly persuaded that, in the rank of mason, 



