made an end of the mystery of iniquity;-hereafter He will, it is promised, "take unto himself His great power and reign." Now He permits his creatures to continue in a condition, often as unfavourable to their virtue, as to their happiness: a condition in which moral ruin seems to be inevitably their lot. It in no respect alleviates the mystery of this, that we are able to trace present evil to past evil. If the evil which each man is permitted to do were to terminate in himself, being the subject of an account only between him and his Maker, it would be less surprising that man should be now permitted to sin; and the hypothesis of a future state of punishment would undoubtedly remove much of the difficulty. But observation teaches us that evil, to the misfortune of our race, does not so terminate; but its mischief is often permitted to spread beyond all calculation, in every direction invading the harmony of that system-now, alas! no longer to be found on earth-in which we can imagine that a God of perfect justice and benevolence would take delight. One or a few men have power to render many as morally corrupt as themselves; and Revelation, far from alleviating the mystery of this, declares that they have moreover power to bring their victims into as great a condemnation as their own. Happily for mankind the same Revelation discloses a way of escape from the power of evil; and vindicates the perfection of the Divine attributes, by disclosing to us a higher and a future world, widely different

from this, and revealing to us the hand of a Most Holy and Mighty Spirit, whose beneficent agency ever was, and ever must be, hidden from the eye of Natural Reason. But the evils, in their great amount, remain unexplained. Many will be ruined for ever, though He wills not that any should perish. Christians believe in the goodwill of God, NOTWITHSTANDING the mystery of evil.

But the heathen philosopher never found, nor can the modern natural theologian find, any other explanation, than that the whole race of mankind has fallen under the Divine displeasure, under which every soul of man is suffering more or less, and by which those who seem, contrary to the usual administration of the world, to have escaped here, will be overtaken hereafter.

This is indeed a gloomy view; and far different from that in which many natural theologians of recent times have indulged themselves: but it is far more consonant with the notions found to prevail in the heathen world, among conscientious men, and ignorant of Christianity; while, as far as it has any force, it confirms as strongly as any argument of a contrary tendency, that Revelation which, while it has made known the good tidings of mercy and immortality, by means of a most wonderful Divine intervention, has also declared the wrath of God upon all unrighteousness of

men.

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CHAPTER IV.

ARGUMENT FOR IMMORTALITY, FROM THE GREATNESS OF HUMAN DESIRES.

A

N argument for the immortality of the soul, more plausible and hopeful than that which has been just treated of, and founded upon a very different view of some of the evils which attend humanity, may be here considered. Hitherto, the depravity residing within the heart of man, the wide extent of misery which he is often permitted to spread around him, and particularly the moral injury which he is suffered to work in the hearts of others, have forbidden us to look forward beyond the grave, except with mere hopelessness, or with a trembling fear. But man, it is argued, has also, in the midst of his darkness and degradation, gleams of light as if from another sphere; conceptions of happiness which belong rather to heaven than to earth: and which the Creator would not have implanted within him, unless with a prospective view to a higher and nobler existence. For the analogy of the rest of animated nature shows, it is observed, that nothing is waste and meaningless; there is no contrivance without a definite purpose, no appetite without a corresponding object, no desire without a counterpart gratification. But man, it

is said, if there be not another world, would constitute a glaring exception to this rule of adaptation and commensurateness. "He feels," says

Dr. Chalmers, "an interminable longing after nobler and higher things; which nought but immortality and the greatness of immortality can satiate; to all which there is nothing like among the inferior animals, among whom there is a certain squareness of adjustment between each desire and its correspondent gratification."

The fish that populate the waters have no desire to penetrate into the regions of air, and the seabirds that soar above seek not to explore the secrets of the ocean depths. Each creature enjoying itself after its kind is satisfied with its place and with the food and the society provided for it therein; and all, when their bodily wants are satisfied, secure even when in the neighbourhood of danger, and undismayed by imaginations of death, are for the most part perfectly content. And for their bodily wants a benignant nature provides so fully, that it would be as useless for them, as it is beyond their power, to "take thought for the morrow." Or if it should be necessary to make provision against a more inclement season, or for the birth and nurture of young, nature herself becomes their instructor, and under her unerring guidance they act, without hesitation or care, in such manner as fully to attain those ends, which are sufficient for the welfare of the race. Man alone is afflicted with desires which he has not the requisite powers, or

the appropriate opportunities for satisfying; he alone is discontented with his lot, desiring to explore regions beyond his reach, perplexed by difficulties which he has capacity enough to comprehend and feel, but not enough to resolve, turning from all which earth can offer in search of some higher and better happiness. In the words of Dr. Chalmers, "man alone labours under the discomfort of an incongruity between his circumstances and his powers; and unless there be new circumstances awaiting him in a more advanced state of being, he, the noblest of nature's products here below, would turn out to be the greatest of her failures."

Dr. Chalmers has even called this argument a "proof for the immortality of the soul." Now such an argument, at least when taken in its most general form, and pushed to its furthest extent, would go to render probable the future existence of the whole human race, under circumstances such as to promote the gradual but unceasing advancement of every individual in knowledge, virtue, and happiness. But the righteousness of God, as we know from Revelation, will not be thus evaded, nor death thus easily disarmed of its sting and it is strange that so very flattering a view of the supposed destinies of our race, as made known by mere natural theology, should be entertained by one, who can hear in the oracles of nature "no word of comfort," but only a "note of terror ;" and who declares, that natural theology is "wholly unable to disperse