VIRTUE AND CRIME 153 



of which is most important to enable us to make or mar, use 

 or abuse, perfect or destroy the gifts or talents of body and 

 soul which he has committed to our charge for us to use or 

 neglect our opportunities to advance the good of the world's 

 evolution. Thus it often occurs that His rewards and punish- 

 ments of wealth and pleasure, health and happiness, appear to 

 us to be misplaced, and his inflictions of poverty, grief and 

 debility to be unjust in their imposition. Whereas it is only 

 our ignorance of the temptations, struggles and contests that 

 He in his wisdom imposes upon each one of us for the ultimate 

 good of the whole that causes us so often to condemn the sins 

 of our neighbours, whereas if we could look upon them from 

 the divine standpoint, instead of from the petty standpoint of 

 our limited power of comprehension and understanding, we 

 would find that many faults that go unpunished by man in 

 our lives are greater than the sins of our neighbours, which 

 are not punished by God, although they would be condemned 

 by man ; that the rewards of wealth, comfort and content be- 

 stowed upon our neighbour could equally have been ours had 

 our lives been equally well conducted for the good of others 

 or the advancement of evolution. 



Remember that when I make excuses for crime, it is 

 only in this sense I do so, because if we are to take an 

 unbiassed view of the evolution of creation, it must be from 

 the standpoint of the period under review, and the virtues 

 which that period is evolving and the crimes it is eradicating. 

 Thus in the early age of the Epoch of Faith, Gluttony, Indo- 

 lence and Sloth were the first virtues of life. Then these were 

 succeeded by a later age wherein these crimes ceased to be 

 virtues, and became crimes that were to extinguish and exter- 

 minate the mammoth or most perfect animal creations ever 

 made. Then cannibalism, savagery and murder next became 

 the highest virtues, the exercise of which was to place man 

 above the angels or animal kingdom. These then are to 

 become the greatest crimes against civilisation, the virtues of 

 which are now to be war, selfishness and cunning, which are 

 in the Epoch of Hope to be the means of evolving Religion, 

 Commerce and Government, which are thereafter to become 

 the worst crimes men can commit, and are to be replaced by 

 the virtues of Peace, Brotherly Love and Charity when man 



