God's will. It may be asked how God's goodness is to benefit man, if he is to be subjected, and amenable to inflexible laws, which no prayer can mitigate or turn aside. The answer is easy. God organized and incorporated in man's system or nature, from the first, such qualities, faculties, and functions, as were necessary to fit him for being the medium and dispenser of God's blessings to himself and to his fellows. God placed within him conscience the voice of God"-the innate sense of right ánd wrong. He gave him also his reason and reflective faculties, together with instincts and intuitions, all of which point and lead to a belief in the immortality of the soul. All these, and others of a similar character, enable "him to thread his way among the unchangeable and eternal laws of God, with a success which answers God's purpose in relation to his existence here and hereafter, and ought to secure thankfulness from him for the glorious bestowal of such a boon. He has been endowed, too, with such faculties as enable him, if he will, to understand the rationale of God's laws, whenever he studies them, and to recognize the harmony with which they all co-operate to work out a divine purpose. All animate and inanimate beings and things, it would seem, are allowed a certain free-will, and vacillate between two restraining laws which keep them within their proper bounds. The planets are prevented from getting too near the sun by centrifugal force, and from getting too far from him by that other restraining force called centripetal. These laws balance each other, and maintain and support the equilibrium of the universe.

The intellect of man is able to appreciate the utility of this, and of all God's laws. Hence it is clear that God has so constituted man, that, to a certain extent, he has

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the means of interpreting aright God's here ways earth. Thus is he allowed to enter into fellowship with his divine Maker, and enabled to argue from the things of time to those of eternity. Let him do this, and he will find abundant reason for the consolatory belief that not one human creature will be permitted to stray so far from the path of duty, as to bring upon himself utter and endless misery. He cannot help but have faith that God has made laws to restrain, and which ever will restrain humanity, as the planets and other heavenly bodies are restrained within their prescribed bounds. Thus instructed, he cannot ignore the impressions which he has received from the unmistakable manifestations of God's goodness' toward him, or give his faith to a pretended revelation of God's character that consigns him to everlasting torment if he do not accept a faith inconsistent with itself. Why should God enable man to see and feel His goodness in this world of time, if He had no such goodness in store for him in the world of eternity? In this mortal state man has been so constituted, and his agency or control over his own acts has been so limited, that notwithstanding his lack of sufficient knowledge to enable him to conform to all the laws to which he is amenablehe is not permitted to depart so far from the right path, as to make it impossible for him eventually to attain the high state of bliss designed for him. He may bring upon himself penalties that may injure or kill his body; but he cannot forfeit his soul to everlasting misery. God has loved man too well, to put it in his power to do this; and too well not to put it in his power to work out for himself a higher degree of happiness in eternity than he can in this world, or than his limited faculties can conceive. All this may be fairly deduced from God's manifestations

of goodness throughout all Nature, and the faith He has implanted in man's reason, conscience, and instinct, that his existence shall be-not a curse, or even a blank-but a transcendent blessing.

God's knowledge in relation to man is perfect. Man's liability to err, and the bounds which are set thereto, and the penalties which are attached to each breach of the law, are alike of God's ordaining. Who then, remembering these things, shall doubt that God has so adjusted one to the other, as that the punishment on the other side of the grave shall be, as here, for man's further education, and for his best interests and happiness? By analogy this should be so; and it is fair to infer that it is so, since the same God that has tempered and adjusted all things, so as to make life happy here, shall be equally our God— the God of goodness and wisdom-throughout all eternity.

The human soul is so attuned to what the ancients called “the music of the spheres," that all Nature draws it to the contemplation of a higher existence. Every living and every inanimate thing, and all the wondrous phenomena of the visible universe, seem to whisper to man to aspire and to be thankful. The moan of the wind, the blustering of the storm, the falling of the rain, the flash of the lightning, the rolling of the thunder, the lowing of the herd, the hum of the bee, the song of the bird, the fragrant loveliness of the flowers, the roar of the sea upon the shore, the gloomy grandeur of the ocean, the gurgling of the stream, the sigh of the forest leaves and branches, the sublimity of the snow-covered mountaintops, the serene beauty of the morning and the evening, the majesty of night, the harmony of truth, the transcendent bliss when two souls are fused into one-when

one heart beats in two bosoms, when the same soul is eloquent in mutual eyes-love to children, love to parents, the kind emotions and sympathies of the human family one to another, and to other living things these multifarious joys all preach the immutable truth, that God's beneficence pervades the universe, and that all tends to develop man's innate belief in His goodness, and prompts to praise and worship Him. Praise is joy; and the best worship is the obedience which, in its turn, produces the happiness of the worshipper. This is man's experience in time; and, if it be not destined to be his experience throughout eternity, God's goodness would be finite, which it is impossible to believe.

It has been urged by the preachers of Christianity and of nearly all known systems of theology that, however good God may be, He permits the existence of evil; and that man may prevail upon God by sacrifice and prayer, to remove or lighten its load. Most modern sects have discarded the idea of sacrifices for this purpose; but all insist, not only upon the efficacy, but upon the absolute necessity of prayer. These phases of belief originate in erroneous ideas of God's goodness.

Physical evil is but another name for pain; and pain, as has already been shewn, is in its purpose entirely benevolent a warning that we have transgressed some law imposed upon us for our good. Moral evil is, in like manner, but another name for disobedience. If it were impossible for man to disobey any physical or moral law of God, he would be deprived, not alone of free-will, but of the capacity for improvement and of mental growth. He would be unable even to aspire to a better state of existence, or to qualify himself to enter it. There would be no propriety in his being placed in this world in a

state of probation. There can be no There can be no probation, where it is impossible to go wrong. It is sometimes asked, how the injustice so often committed by man on man is to be reconciled with the shield which God has thrown around him, and all the inferior animals, for self-protection? The reply is, that so far as the corporeal part of man is concerned, and so far as intellectual agencies operate in this life, the protection is not perfect, else man's free agency would have no office. The protection provided is efficient only up to the boundary that circumscribes man's free will. Within that boundary man can work out for himself a higher or lower degree of happiness, according as he understands and conforms to God's laws; and it may be that the trials and vexations of this life will serve, by contrast, to increase the joys and happiness of the next. In fact, we can scarcely conceive what enjoyment would be, if we had no idea of the reverse. As regards the liability of man to encroach upon the rights of others, it must not be forgotten that God has given him various qualities, propensities, and incentives to action, in order that he may be used as an instrument, within certain limits, for carrying out God's purposes. These are, in the first place, that men shall contribute to the happiness and welfare of each other by kind offices and social intercourse; and secondly, that every individual shall secure a greater or less degree of happiness in this life and the life to come, according as he deserves more or less by his obedience. Now, while each individual may, in the exercise of his free-will, perform his part more or less perfectly, yet so strong in the right direction are the propensities established within him as motives to his conduct, that man, by the exercise of his free-will within its prescribed limits, accomplishes God's purpose while in the pursuit of