ndidit universa," must
ever be borne in mind. Undoubtedly, there are no afterthoughts in God.
But neither is there a past in which He decreed once for all what was to
be and what was not to be. He is the Eternal Now. But still all events
are the fulfilment of His Will, and contribute to the working out of the
scheme which He has traced for creation. Feeble is human speech to deal
with such high matters, serving, at the best, but dimly to adumbrate
ineffable truths. As Goethe somewhere says, "Words are good, but not the
best: the best cannot be expressed in words. My point, however, is that
there is, on the one hand, a connection of events with events all
through creation and an intelligible sequence, while, on the other, the
Free-Will of man is a determining force as regards his own spiritual
actions, as is the Free-Will of God in respect of the whole creation,
and that miracles are neither afterthoughts, nor irregularities, nor
contradictions, but at once free and according to law. Miracles are not
abnormal, unless Free-Will is a reduction of Kosmos to Chaos, and the
negation of Reason altogether."

[54] I say "the doctrine of the Divine goodness," because that is, as I
think, what the author of "Natural Religion" means. As to the "simple,
absolute benevolence"--"benevolence," indeed, is a milk-and-water
expression; "God is love"--which "some men seem to think the only
character of the Author of Nature," it is enough to refer to Bishop
Butler's striking chapter on "The Moral Government of God," (Analogy,
Part I. c. iii). I will here merely observe that although, doubtless,
God's attribute is Love of the creation, He is not only Love, but
Sanctity, Justice, Creative Power, Force, Providence; and whereas,
considered as a Unit He is infinite, He is not infinite--I speak under
correction--viewed in those aspects, abstractions, or attributes which,
separately taken, are necessary for our subjective view of Him. I allow
that God's power and His "benevolence" may in some cases work out
different ends, as if separate entities, but still maintain--what the
author of "Natural Religion" ignores--that God in His very essence is
not only "Benevolence," but Sanctity, &c. also; _all as One in His
Oneness_.

[55] "Three Essays on Religion," p. 38.

SYRIAN COLONIZATION.

During the past few years many proposals have been made, and schemes
formed, for repeopling the wastes of Syria and Palestine with the
surplus population