and agitated by contrary passions, conflicting wishes, fears and desires. And it is in this tumultuous scene that the moral character expands, and is decided to good or evil; and ultimately takes its place among the innumerable gradations which form the connecting chain between the best and the worst of the human race.

In fact, the very viciousness of the world renders it a state of virtuous discipline, in the degree it is, to good men; and so highly exalts the dignity of those who subject their rebellious nature to the guidance of reason or superior obligation, and look beyond the business or concerns of the present state towards that final destination, of which this world is only the entrance. For, in proportion as the dross is impure, the metal is refined; and if the admission of evil into the system sinks a vast multitude to a very low state of degradation, it raises the character of virtue to an elevation, which a state affording no temptation or opportunity of failure could never have attained. A

being, before whom the views of his real interest had been always so clearly displayed, as to render it morally impossible that he should swerve from them, would not appear so fit a subject of reward, as one conscious of his free agency, sensible of opposite desires, swayed by alternate interests, with passion to impel and reason to direct him. A man thus struggling against the vicious habits with which he is surrounded, is worthier of celestial spectators, than the great admiration of former ages, the man struggling against misfortunes. It is a sufficient justification of the phænomena of the moral world, that the established system of things exhibits such spectacles, and raises man to so sublime a height, superior to the suggestions of the depraved part of his nature, and to the tyranny of bad example. And it must not be omitted, in conclusion, that the obvious effect of such a state as Revelation represents the life of man to be, is to introduce, in the person who acts up to the faith and precepts of Revelation, that sort of connexion between man and his Creator, of dependance

and obedience on the side of man, and of regard and assistance on the part of God, which we conceive will be renewed and perfected in the life to come.

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CHAPTER IV.

On the Existence of natural Evils, and those of civil Life.

IF we turn from the moral to the natural state of man, we find on that side also a body of evil, which is seized upon as a strong hold by the opponents of the goodness of the Deity. The extent, indeed, of these evils is differently estimated, according, it would seem, to the natural temperament of the person who contemplates them. While Dr. Paley, whose writings bear strong testimony to his sanguine and cheerful mind, maintains that they hold no proportion to the mass of human enjoyment;'

* Paley's Nat. Theol. p. 499. "It is a happy world, after all. The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted

another eye sees through another medium, and at once the picture is reversed. "There is no day nor hour," it is said, "in which, in some regions of the many-peopled globe, thousands of men, and millions of animals, are not tortured to the utmost extent that organized life will afford. Let us turn our attention to our own species.

A

Let us survey the poor; oppressed, hungry, naked, denied all the gratifications of life, and all that nourishes the mind. Let us view man, writhing under the pangs of disease, or the fiercer tortures that are stored up for him by his brethren."* less prejudiced writer expresses his belief, "that even among those whose state is beheld with envy, there are many who, if at the end of their course, they were put to their option, whether, without any respect to a future state, they would repeat all the pleasures they have had in life, upon condition to go over again

existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view."

* Godwin, p. 455.