vour, can act our own real part; although _what_ the larger
processes are we cannot expect at present to comprehend better than a
sympathising dog, whose master is devoting his life to furthering the
highest spiritual welfare of a nation or of all mankind, can know why
his master's face is now grief-stricken and now joyous.

In other words, the ills that we _can_ spiritualise and idealise
without merely destroying them hint to us that, despite the
uncomprehended chaos of seemingly hopeless tragedy with which for our
present view human life seems to be beset, the vision of the spiritual
triumph of the good which reason and loyalty present to us need not be
an illusion, but is perfectly consistent with the facts. The world is
infinite. With our present view we could not expect to grasp directly
the unity of its meaning. We have sources of insight which tend to our
salvation by showing us, in general, although certainly not in detail,
the nature of the spiritual process which, as these sources of insight
persistently point out, constitutes the essence of reality. Whether
these sources are themselves valid and trustworthy is a question to be
considered upon its own merits. I have stated my case so far as our
brief review requires it to be stated. I must leave to your own
considerateness the further estimate of what these {238} sources
teach, both as to the reality of the master of life and as to the
nature of the process of salvation. My present concern is simply with
the cloud that the presence of evil seems to cause to pass over the
face of all these sources. I cannot undertake wholly to dispel this
cloud by showing you in detail why pestilences or why broken hearts
are permitted to exist in this world. But I can show you that there
are, indeed, ills, and very dark ills in life, which not only are
there, but are essential to the highest life. I do not exaggerate our
power to solve mysteries when I insist that _these_ ills constitute
not an opaque hindrance to insight, not a cloud over the sun of reason
and of loyalty, but rather a source of insight. And, as I insist, they
constitute such a source without being in the least an excuse for any
indolence in our moral struggle with precisely those aspects of such
ills as we ought to destroy. They show us how the triumph of the moral
will over such adversities is perfectly consistent with the
recognition that the most rational type of life demands the existence
of just such adv