g-unchallenged legends become no more than nursery tales. The
text-books of astronomy and geology work their way in between the
questions and answers of the time-honored catechisms. The doctrine of
evolution, so far as it is accepted, changes the whole relations of man
to the creative power. It substitutes infinite hope in the place of
infinite despair for the vast majority of mankind. Instead of a
shipwreck, from which a few cabin passengers and others are to be saved
in the long-boat, it gives mankind a vessel built to endure the tempests,
and at last to reach a port where at the worst the passengers can find
rest, and where they may hope for a home better than any which they ever
had in their old country. It is all very well to say that men and women
had their choice whether they would reach the safe harbor or not.

"Go to it grandam, child;
Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will
Give it a plum, a cherry and a fig."

We know what the child will take. So which course we shall take depends
very much on the way the choice is presented to us, and on what the
chooser is by nature. What he is by nature is not determined by himself,
but by his parentage. "They know not what they do." In one sense this
is true of every human being. The agent does not know, never can know,
what makes him that which he is. What we most want to ask of our Maker
is an unfolding of the divine purpose in putting human beings into
conditions in which such numbers of them would be sure to go wrong. We
want an advocate of helpless humanity whose task it shall be, in the
words of Milton,

"To justify the ways of God to man."

We have heard Milton's argument, but for the realization of his vision of
the time

"When Hell itself shall pass away,
And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day,"

our suffering race must wait in patience.

The greater part of the discourse the reader has had before him was
delivered over the teacups one Sunday afternoon. The Mistress looked
rather grave, as if doubtful whether she ought not to signify her
disapprobation of what seemed to her dangerous doctrine.

However, as she knew that I was a good church-goer and was on the best
terms with her minister, she said nothing to show that she had taken the
alarm. Number Five listened approvingly. We had talked the question
over well, and were perfectly agreed on the main point. How could it be
otherwise? Do you suppose that any in