pon, and the dogs that eat it, are
facts;--and yonder happy person, whose the horse was till its knees were
broken over the hurdles, who had an immortal soul to begin with, and
wealth and peace to help forward his immortality; who has also devoted
the powers of his soul, and body, and wealth, and peace, to the spoiling
of houses, the corruption of the innocent, and the oppression of the
poor; and has, at this actual moment of his prosperous life, as many
curses waiting round about him in calm shadow, with their death's eyes
fixed upon him, biding their time, as ever the poor cab-horse had
launched at him in meaningless blasphemies, when his failing feet
stumbled at the stones,--this happy person shall have no stripes,--shall
have only the horse's fate of annihilation; or, if other things are
indeed reserved for him, Heaven's kindness or omnipotence is to be
doubted therefore.

Sec. 33. We cannot reason of these things. But this I know--and this may by
all men be known--that no good or lovely thing exists in this world
without its correspondent darkness; and that the universe presents
itself continually to mankind under the stern aspect of warning, or of
choice, the good and the evil set on the right hand and the left.

And in this mountain gloom, which weighs so strongly upon the human
heart that in all time hitherto, as we have seen, the hill defiles have
been either avoided in terror or inhabited in penance, there is but the
fulfilment of the universal law, that where the beauty and wisdom of the
Divine working are most manifested, there also are manifested most
clearly the terror of God's wrath, and inevitableness of His power.

Nor is this gloom less wonderful so far as it bears witness to the error
of human choice, even when the nature of good and evil is most
definitely set before it. The trees of Paradise were fair; but our first
parents hid themselves from God "in medio ligni Paradisi," in the midst
of the trees of the garden. The hills were ordained for the help of man;
but, instead of raising his eyes to the hills, from whence cometh his
help, he does his idol sacrifice "upon every high hill and under every
green tree." The mountain of the Lord's house is established above the
hills; but Nadab and Abihu shall see under His feet the body of heaven
in his clearness, yet go down to kindle the censer against their own
souls. And so to the end of time it will be; to the end, that cry will
still be heard along the