278 NATURAL THEOLOGY EXPLAINS NO DIFFICULTIES. 



origin of species by natural laws instead of direct 

 creation, relieves us of the difficulty of the origin and 

 existence of evi] and suffering in the animal creation, 

 including man. On the contrary, to the believer in an 

 all-powerful, all-wise, and all-good Creator, these 

 difficulties remain exactly the same as before, not less, 

 but also not greater. And on the whole, we may look 

 upon the microscope, and the telescope, and the pro- 

 gress of knowledge generally, to have simply widened 

 the field of knowledge, but not altered the relations of 

 science to the real doctrines of revealed religion. 

 Whoever is disposed to cavil at these doctrines, need 

 not go to the more recondite truths of science for illus- 

 trations. He does not require to search out the cause 

 of the marvellous adaptation of animal species to their 

 habitation and purpose by the cruel and pitiless law of 

 survival of the fittest. He has but to open his eyes 

 and look around and he will see thousands of examples 

 of the same difficulties in daily life. Does not the 

 rain fall equally on the just and the unjust ? does not 

 the stone crush and the fire burn the martyr equally 

 with the criminal ? does not the wicked flourish while 

 the good may suffer wrong; and so on through every 

 phase of human life ? If to the end of time these 

 difficulties will perplex the mind of believers, still 

 there remains the hope that in a future state of ex- 

 istence, beside redress of the balance of wrong and 

 suffering in this world, the purpose of God in causing 

 immortal beings to pass under the hard necessities of 

 fixed natural laws during the first stage of their 

 existence, will be made manifest and reconciled 

 with His benevolence and omnipotence. But to the 



