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develop a perfect humanity out of His lower creation, 

 and nothing can thwart the process or alter the result. 

 " My word shall not return unto Me void, but it shall 

 accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in 

 the thing whereto I sent it." This is our great encour- 

 agement, our noblest hope second only to that which 

 looks to a blessed inheritance in another world. It is 

 this thought that should inspire the farmer, who as he 

 toils wonders, " Why all this labor ? The Good Father 

 could have made me like the lilies, who, though they 

 toil not, neither spin, are yet clothed in glory ; and why 

 should I, a nobler being, be subject to the dust and the 

 sweat of labor ?" This thought should enlighten every 

 artisan of the thousands that people the factories and 

 guide their whirling machinery in our modern cities. 

 Every revolution of a wheel is moving the car of pro- 

 gress, and the timed stroke of the crank and the 

 rhythmic throw of the shuttle are but the music the 

 spheres have sung since time began. A new significance 

 then appears in the prayer of David : " Let the beauty 

 of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish Thou the 

 work of our hands upon us : the work of our hands, 

 O Lord, establish Thou it." But beware of the catas- 

 trophe, for " He will sit as a refiner :" " the wheat shall 

 be gathered into barns, but the chaff shall be burned 

 with unquenchable fire." If this be true, let us look 

 for 



3. The Extinction of Evil. How is necessitarianism 

 to be reconciled with free will ? It appears to me, thus : 

 When a being whose safety depends on the perfection 

 of a system of laws abandons the system by which he 

 lives, he becomes subject to that lower grade of laws 

 which govern lower intelligences. Man ? falling from 



