THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 
Why is evil permitted in the world? This is the great unan- 
swered question in human experience. The only general answer 
is that of Job and the only recourse is submission to the inevitable. 
For any approximate answer it is first necessary to define 
evil; it may be that, if properly defined, the question regarding 
evil would not need to be asked. 
We know that life is physically over-shadowed by pain. How- 
ever bright the dawn, few days lack this blighting experience, 
and many a life is foredoomed to drag out weary years of agony. 
Nothing is so real as pain. The buoyant youth strives to realize 
some bright ideal. All are pressing toward the mark of a high 
calling. But how seldom does our most strenuous endeavor 
achieve success. Rather, how inevitable is failure in the end. 
Every man is thrust into life-long conflict with a superhuman foe 
and acknowledged defeat from the start. Death with its un- 
fathomed possibilities is the portion of us all. 
Still again, we are all artists painting, with such skill as we pos- 
sess, our own portraits. Daily we toil at the growing ideal of 
self. Hourly the vista of life opens before us and the universe 
grows large and pregnant with new possibilities. New relations 
are discovered and our self-ideal adapts itself to new possibilities 
of reaction. 
This almost subconscious activity may be likened to the instinc- 
tive assimilation of self to the hero of an interesting story we may 
be reading. That we do not formulate such a self-estimate is 
because it is so fundamental a condition of our conscious life and 
lies as a rule too deep for words and is clothed in that modesty 
that is the external aspect of self-respect. 
But with what a shock do we discover that in the hour of trial 
our self-hero fails to display heroism! We conceived our self 
as rescuing the perishing, but discover with shame that in an 
agony of fear we have pushed to their death those who clung to* 
our garments. We conceived ourself as resenting the bribe, 
but find the inducement so alluring that we temporize with the 
tempter. 
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