358 AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD. 



intention to condone it; but it has been permitted — 

 shall we say, in a paradox? — that it might eventually 

 and forever be annihilated. 1 do not say what the 

 process shall be; but influences, however subtle, are 

 real, and the very effects of evil may be ultimately to 

 rid us of it. Yet the final triumph of good must be, 

 not from any development of evil itself, but in its abso- 

 lute suppression and destruction, when God shall be 

 "all in all." 



So, sings Tennyson, in his "In Memoriam:" 



"O yet I trust that somehow good 

 Will be the final goal of ill, 

 To pangs of Nature, sins of will. 

 Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ; 



"That nothing walks with aimless feet; 

 That not one life shall be destroyed. 

 Or cast as rubbish to the void. 

 When God hath made the pile complete; 



"That not a worm is cloven in vain; 

 That not a moth with vain desire 

 Is shrivel'd in a fruitless fire, 

 Or but subserves another's gain. 



"Behold, we know not anything; 



I can but trust that good shall fall 

 At last — far off — at last, to all. 

 And every winter change to spring." 



Man fell; but we are told there is to be a restora- 

 tion to another Paradise, when God shall walk among 

 men again, and be their God. It is none of our doing. 

 "God so loved the world." Now I refuse to separate 

 man from the rest of Nature, to elevate him on a 

 superior pedestal, and to alienate these, our brethren of 



