hing
of theology as to God's goodness? Theology recognizes, and recognizes
far more fully than the mere physicist, the abounding misery that is in
the world, the terribleness of that "unutterable curse which hangs upon
mankind," for it sees not only what he sees, but what is infinitely
sadder and more appalling, the vision of moral evil presented by the
heart and conscience of man, by every page in the history of the
individual and of the race. It was not reserved for professors of
physical science in the nineteenth century to bring to light the fact
that "the world is out of joint," and thereby to discredit the
theological view of the universe. Theology knows only too well that life
is "a dread machinery of sin and sorrow." It is the very existence of
the vast aboriginal calamity, whatever it may have been, in which the
human race, the whole creation, is involved, that forms the ground for
the need of the revelation which Christianity professes to bring. If
there were no evil, there would be no need of a deliverance from evil.
Of course, why evil has been suffered to arise, why it is suffered to
exist, by the Perfect Being, of whom it is truly said that He is God,
because he is the highest Good, we know not, and no search will make us
know. All we know is that it is not from Him, of whom, and for whom, and
by whom, are all things; "because it has no substance of its own, but is
only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has
substance." The existence of evil is a mystery--one of the countless
mysteries surrounding human life--which, after the best use of reason,
must be put aside as beyond reason. But it is also a fact, and a fact
which is so far from discrediting the theological view of the universe,
that it is a primary and necessary element of that view.

VI.

Thus much as to physical science and the propositions in which the
author of "Natural Religion" supposes the theological view of the
universe to be summed up. But, as he notes, the case urged in the
present day against Christianity does not rest merely upon physical
science, properly so called; but upon the extension of its methods to
the whole domain of knowledge (p. 7), the practical effect being the
reduction of religion to superstition, of anthropology to physiology, of
metaphysics to physics, of ethics to the result of temperament or the
promptings of self-interest, of man's personality to the summation of a
series of dynamic cond