234 • FACTS AND FANCIES 



ator, and if these unfailingly assert themselves, 

 and must do so, in order to the permanence of 

 the material universe, would not analogy teach 

 that, unless the Supreme Being is wholly bound 

 up in material processes, and is altogether in- 

 different to moral considerations, the same reg- 

 ularity and constancy must prevail in the spirit- 

 ual world ? 



This question is closely connected with the 

 ideas of sacrifice and atonement. Nothing is 

 more certain in physics than that action and re- 

 action are equal, and that no effect can be pro- 

 duced without an adequate cause. It results 

 from this that every action must involve a cor- 

 responding expenditure of matter and force. 

 Anything else would be pure magic ; which, we 

 know, is nonsense. Thus every intervention 

 on behalf of others must imply a correspond- 

 ing sacrifice. We cannot raise a fallen child 

 or aid the poor or the hungry without a sac- 

 rifice of power or means proportioned to the 

 result. So,»in the moral world, degradation 

 cannot be remedied nor punishment averted 

 without corresponding sacrifice; and this, it may 

 be, on the part of those who are in no degree 

 blameworthy. If men have fallen into moral 

 evil and God proposes to elevate them from 



