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The compatibility of error in faith with virtue in conduct is to them only a mystery the more, a branch of the insoluble problem of Evil, permitted by a Being at once all-powerful and all-benevolent. Stringent logic may make short work of either fact, a benevolent author of evil, or a virtuous despiser of divine truth. But in an atmosphere of mystery, logical contradictions melt away.

The germ of love and mercy is in every breast, and cannot fail to be developed, if early called into action; and by the blessing of Almighty God, who is the great First Cause of all good results, the day is fast approaching, yea, is now at hand, when the fierce passions, the love of self, the long catalogues of debasing crimes, which have so long disgraced human nature, will give way before a golden age of true Christianity; when man will not be arrayed against his fellow-men, but all will go hand in hand together in the bond of love, seeking to do good, and to accomplish the purposes for which they were created by an all-wise and all-benevolent God.

The moment that rudimentary but happy and congenial life begins to be overshadowed by fear, or debased by conscious cruelty, the moment that process of evolution begins to evolve not only cruel selfishness in its most odious forms, but deceit and artifice and treacherous cunning in the warfare which one animal wages with another, then I think you may be certain of one of two things either the Creator is not all-benevolent, or that that scheme is somehow working out as He never intended it should: there must have been some disturbing and hostile influence."

But between the all-wise and the all-benevolent and man, according to the new philosophers, no relations were to be any longer acknowledged. They renounce in despair the possibility of bringing man into connection with that First Cause which they can neither explain nor deny.

And wherever the dominion of priestcraft has been destroyed, there they are found at their best and bravest, with a glimmering dawn of the true Christian spirit beginning to lighten their darkness, a spirit which has no race or sect, but is all-embracing, all-loving, and all-benevolent; which 'thinketh no evil, but is so nobly sufficing in its tenderness and patience, as to persuade the obstinate, govern the unruly, and recover the lost, by the patient influence of its own example.

Very often would my master take me away with him to a lake in the interior of the island, and these absences lasted for whole months together, during which time I was perforce separated from my Theresa, my dear wife; for, not having been able to get united by a clergyman, we had joined ourselves, under the all-benevolent and protecting eye of the Almighty!