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arid contributes to the enjoyment of another, 

 the passing away of one generation makes room 

 for the next in constant succession, arid thus, 

 without inconvenience, multiplies indefinitely the 

 number of creatures who enjoy the blessing of 

 existence. 



Such is nature : and what then is the God of 

 nature ? Here philosophy is at fault, and revela- 

 tion takes up the question. When we are told 

 of man's abused liberty which placed him in the 

 forlorn condition of alienation from his Maker 

 of his state of discipline, and the means of his 

 redemption, the existence of evil becomes intel- 

 ligible, and the mystery of nature is unfolded. 



There- is, indeed, something still dark and mys- 

 terious in that decree of the Eternal by which the 

 human race was doomed to guilt and misery, by 

 which the most noble and excellent of his sub- 

 lunary works, whose head he had crowned with 

 glory, and on whose breast he had stamped an 

 image of his own perfections, should have been 

 permitted to abuse those privileges to divest 

 himself of the high rank which he held among 

 creatures, and by his follies and crimes to degrade 

 himself below the beasts that perish. While other 

 animals are formed with admirable skill to fulfil 

 the end of their existence, arid to be happy up to 

 the extent of their capacities, he would appear to 

 form a melancholy exception to this beneficent 

 order of nature. Formed with feelings suscep- 

 tible of the most exquisite enjoyment, yet doom- 

 ed to a perpetual conflict of jarring emotions and 



