eaks thus?" says Mr Sadler,
after misrepresenting in a most extraordinary manner, though, we are
willing to believe, unintentionally, one of the positions of Mr Malthus.
"Whose minister is it that speaks thus? That of the lover and avenger of
little children?" Again, Mr Malthus recommends, erroneously perhaps, but
assuredly from humane motives, that alms, when given, should be given
very sparingly. Mr Sadler quotes the recommendation, and adds the
following courteous comment:--"The tender mercies of the wicked are
cruel." We cannot think that a writer who indulges in these indecent and
unjust attacks on professional and personal character has any right to
complain of our sarcasms on his metaphors and rhymes.

We will now proceed to examine the reply which Mr Sadler has thought
fit to make to our arguments. He begins by attacking our remarks on the
origin of evil. They are, says he, too profound for common apprehension;
and he hopes that they are too profound for our own. That they seem
profound to him we can well believe. Profundity, in its secondary as in
its primary sense, is a relative term. When Grildrig was nearly drowned
in the Brobdingnagian cream-jug he doubtless thought it very deep. But
to common apprehension our reasoning would, we are persuaded, appear
perfectly simple.

The theory of Mr Malthus, says Mr Sadler, cannot be true, because it
asserts the existence of a great and terrible evil, and is therefore
inconsistent with the goodness of God. We answer thus. We know that
there are in the world great and terrible evils. In spite of these
evils, we believe in the goodness of God. Why may we not then continue
to believe in his goodness, though another evil should be added to the
list?

How does Mr Sadler answer this? Merely by telling us, that we are too
wicked to be reasoned with. He completely shrinks from the question; a
question, be it remembered, not raised by us--a question which we should
have felt strong objections to raising unnecessarily--a question put
forward by himself, as intimately connected with the subject of his
two ponderous volumes. He attempts to carp at detached parts of our
reasoning on the subject. With what success he carries on this guerilla
war after declining a general action with the main body of our argument
our readers shall see.

"The Reviewer sends me to Paley, who is, I confess, rather more
intelligible on the subject, and who, fortunately, has decided the very
point in