NATURAL SELECTION AND ETHICS. 59 



Law of Self- Activity. Wolves and devils enjoy their 

 calling. Wicked flourish like a green bay tree. Not 

 wickedness, for this conflicts with human reaction. 



Law of Sensation. Carry pleasure, pain, sorrow, 

 alike. Pleasure ; pain a warning of injury or degen- 

 eration. Nature tempers the wind to the shorn lamb 

 allows pain to cease when useless. 



Laws of Nature not good nor bad, but true. Never- 

 theless goodness lasts and wickedness fails. "God 

 consents, but only for a time." " God's errands never 

 fail." " What God does for man he does through man." 



Thus arise the laws of human reaction, from which 

 comes human justice. The impulses that "make for 

 righteousness." Slowly, wastefully, but surely comes 

 the growth of ethics from human reaction. 



Why God's errands never fail. 



In two ways at least : 



Through Human Help. The bank of human kind- 

 ness. Those who bring sunshine and freedom into 

 the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves. 



Through Self -Help and Self -Devotion. Power of 

 earnestness and devotion. 



The strength of prayer. Sempach: Mars ton Moor. 

 Thy will be done, and let my will be a part of it. 



What if prayer will not bring rain, or make a crop, 

 or have no money value ? Its value to you. Pente- 

 cost's remark. 



" The essence of prayer is to bring two things into 

 unison the will of God, and the will of man. Super- 

 stition imagined no doubt that prayer would change 

 the will of God ; but the more spiritually-minded 

 have always understood that the will which must be 



