198 
Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness, and Thy clouds drop fatness. 
The day is Thine ; the night also is Thine. Thou hast prepared the light 
and the sun. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth ; Thou hast made 
summer and winter. 0 Lord, how manifold are Thy works ; in wisdom hast 
Thou made them all ; the earth is full of Thy riches.” 
H5. A single word more 5— The actual existence of moral and 
physical evil in the world is generally, I do believe, the great 
stumbling-block in the way of men's receiving the doctrine 
that all things are the creation and under the immediate super- 
intendence of an Almighty and Intelligent Being. To those 
who may unfortunately be influenced by such considerations, I 
would beg leave merely to suggest, without—as that is ^pos- 
sible at this hour— arguing the question, how much all the 
difficulties arising from the existence of evil are increased by 
the miserable hypothesis that there is no God, and no lire 
for us beyond the present ! Nay, the argument has been well 
urged by Butler, that, because such evils do exist, and because 
there is not always a satisfactory award upon the actions ot 
men in this life, therefore we must conclude, even had we no 
other argument, that - the be-all and end-all " of our existence 
is not here. Even were we not constrained, by all that is 
rational within us, to conclude that “ the Maker of all things 
is God and that, but for His eternal existence, the universe, 
instead of a fair creation, full of life and beauty and marvellous 
operations, would have originally been, and so continued to be, 
a dark and lifeless blank, and at least (whatever we may con- 
ceive space filled only with eternal matter to be) a world with- 
out conscious beings, and consequently without ourselves, as well 
as without the Peity. Let us only grant, but as an hypothesis 
the existence of Eternal Intelligence, and at once the flood ot 
light, which our reasonable souls seem to pant for, is let m 
upon this utter darkness of nature! Were there no other 
argument than this, The Idea of God explains all,— seeing it 
accounts for our own subordination, as well as our superiority, 
in the world of being, — we should, I venture to assert, be com- 
pelled, as intelligent beings, tp accept it. How much more so, 
when it is pressed ppon us, as supplementary and cumulative 
proof, in addition to all the copvictions we must have ot God s 
existence, if we judge only in this, as we do m respect to 
the existence of the life and intelligence o,f each other, and m 
accordance with our invariable and everyday convictions and 
experience as to productions of human art and intelligence . 
And remember one of two things you mmj believe ; for the 
Atheist has his creed as well as the Theist: you must believe in 
eternal matter if not in eternal mind. Mind and matter do both 
