intellectual system which is now so full of confidence and joy, might have
been without a secure foundation. We have seen that its foundation could
not, from the very nature of things, have been established and fixed by
mere power; for this could not have kept a single moral agent from the
possibility of sinning much less a boundless universe of such beings.

The Christian believer, then, labours under no difficulty in regard to the
existence of evil, which should in the least oppress his mind. If he
should confine his attention too narrowly to the nature of evil as it is
in itself, he may, indeed, perplex his brain almost to distraction; but he
should take a freer and wider range, viewing it in all its relations,
dependencies, and ultimate results. If he should consider the origin of
evil exclusively, he may only meet with impenetrable obscurity and
confusion, as he endeavours to pry into the dark enigma of the world; but
all that is painful in it will soon vanish, if he will only view it in
connexion with God's infinite plans for the good of the universe. He will
then see, that this world, with all its wickedness and woe, is but a dim
speck of vitality in a boundless dominion of light, that is necessary to
the glory and perfection of the whole.

The believer should not, for one moment, entertain the low view, that the
atonement confers its benefits on man alone. The plan of redemption was
not an after-thought, designed to remedy an evil which the eye of
omniscience had not foreseen; it was formed in the counsels of infinite
wisdom long before the foundations of the world were laid. The atonement
was made for man, it is true; but, in a still higher sense, man was made
for the atonement. All things were made _for_ Christ. God, whose
prerogative it is to bring good out of evil, will turn the short-lived
triumph of the powers of darkness into a glorious victory, and cause it to
be a universal song of rejoicing to his great name throughout the endless
ages of eternity.

Who would complain, then, that he is subject to the evils of this life,
since he has been subjected in hope? Everything around us is a type and
symbol of our high destiny. All things shadow forth the glory to be
revealed in us. The insignificant seed that rots in the earth does not
die. It lives, it germinates, it grows, it springs up into the stately
plant, and is crowned with beauty. The worm beneath our feet, though
seemingly so dead, is, by the secret