198 PURPOSE AND CONDITION OF ANIMATED CREATION 



unknowingly come with each law of the system, there is 

 a system of Mercy and Grace behind the screen of nature, 

 which is to make up for all casualties endured here, and 

 the very largeness of which is what makes these casual- 

 ties a matter of indifference to God. For the existence of 

 such a system the actual constitution of nature is itself an 

 argument. The reasoning may proceed thus : The system 

 of nature assures us that benevolence is a leading princi- 

 ple in the Divine mind. But that system is at the same 

 time deficient in a means of making this benevolence ot 

 invariable operation. To reconcile this to the recognized 

 character of the Deity, it is necessary to suppose that the 

 present system is but a part of a whole, a stage in a Great 

 Progress, and that the Redress is in reserve. Another 

 argument here occurs — the economy of nature, beautifully 

 arranged and vast in its extent as it is, does not satisfy 

 even man's idea of what might be ; he feels that, if this 

 multiplicity of theatres for the exemplification of such 

 phenomena as we see on earth were to go on forever un- 

 changed, it would not be worthy of the Being capable of 

 creating it. An endless monotony of human generations, 

 with their humble thinkings and doings, seems an object 

 beneath that august Being. But the mundane economy 

 might be very well as a portion of some greater phenom- 

 enon, the rest of which was yet to be evolved. It there- 

 fore appears that our system, though it may at first appear 

 at issue with other doctrines in esteem amongst mankind, 

 tends to come into harmony with them, and even to give 

 them support. I would say, in conclusion, that, even 

 where the two above arguments may fail of effect, there 

 may yet be a faith derived from this view of nature suf- 

 ficient to sustain us under all sense of the imperfect hap- 

 piness, the calamities, the woes, and pains of this sphere 

 of being. For let us but fully and truly consider what a 

 system is here laid open to view, and we cannot well 

 doubt that we are in the hands of One who is both able 

 and willing to do us the most entire justice. And in this 

 faith we may well rest at ease, even though life should 

 have been to us but a protracted disease, or though every 

 hope we had built on the secular materials within our 

 reach were felt to be melting from our grasp. Thinking 

 of all the contingencies of this world as to be in time 

 melted into or lost in the greater system, to which the 

 present is only subsidiary, let us vvait the end with pa- 

 ^ence, am be of ejood cheer 



