ctive faith that in God's plan no incontestable facts are
exceptional or needless facts. Science assumes this in regard to the
phenomena of the natural world; and, in its progressive searches,
expects to discover continual proof that all manifestations, however
opposite and contradictory, are parts of one beneficent scheme.
Accordingly, Science starts on its investigations with the conviction
that the storm is as salutary as the sunshine,--that there is utility in
what seems mere luxury,--and that Nature's loveliness and grandeur,
Nature's oddity and grotesqueness, have a substantial value, as well as
Nature's wheat-harvests. Now the same principle is to be recognized in
dealing with things spiritual. It may not be affirmed that anything
appertaining to universal consciousness--spontaneous, irresistible, as
breathing--is of itself base, and therefore to be put away; since so to
do is to question the Creative Wisdom. The work of the Infinite Spirit
must be consistent; and you might as truly charge the bright stars with
malignity as denounce as vile one faculty or capacity of the mind.
Consequently, there is a use for all forms of wit and humor.

Punch represents a genuine phase of human nature,--none the less genuine
because human nature has other and far different phases. That there is a
time to mourn does not prove there is no time to dance. Punch has his
part, and his times to play it, in the melodrama, the mixed comedy and
tragedy, of existence. What we have to do is to see that he interferes
with no other actor's _role_, comes upon the stage in fitting scenes,
keeps to the text and the impersonations which right principle and pure
taste assign him. His grimaces are not for the church. He may not sing
his catches when penitent souls are listening to the "Miserere," drop
his torpedo-puns when life's mystery and solemnity are pressed heavily
upon the soul,--be irreverent, profane, or vulgar. He must know and keep
his place. But he should have his place, and have it confessed; and that
place is not quite at the end of the procession of the benefactors of
the race. Punch, as we speak of him now, is but a generic name for
Protean wit and humor, well and wisely employed. As such, let Punch have
his mission; there is ample room for him and his merry doings, without
interfering with soberer agencies. _Let_ him go about tickling mankind;
it does mankind good to be tickled occasionally. Let him broaden
elongated visages; there