ine
grace. The tares have been suffered to grow, but only that there might
be demonstrated the power of the wheat to root them out. And from the
very beginning Christ has been the author and principle of the true
evolution. He who created the race has been its Preserver, Instructor,
and Saviour. Humanity, in its warring and its lust, would long since
have become extinct, if it had not been for the presence in it of a
divine Life and Light. That life and light were the life and light of
the preincarnate Christ. He is "the light that lighteth every man," and
"his life was the light of men." Jonathan Edwards did not go too far,
when he recognized in all natural beauty and goodness the work of
Christ. The sunset clouds were painted by the hand of Christ, and it is
he whose glory is celebrated by the cannonading of the autumn storm over
the grave of summer. All the light of conscience is his light; all the
progress of science is his revelation. It was he who led the children of
Israel by a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, and who
thundered and lightened from Sinai at the giving of the Law. "The Rock
that followed" the chosen people through the wilderness and gave them
drink "was Christ." Every reform within the bounds of heathenism has
been due to him. Confucius and Buddha, so far as they uttered truth,
were his messengers. He has never left humanity without a witness to the
power and goodness of God. While men have been seeking an unknown God,
he has been that very God whom they were seeking, and it is he who has
incited them to feel after him and find him. His light has shined in
the darkness, and the darkness has comprehended it not, though in him we
live and move and have our being.

So there is evolution of good, side by side with the evolution of evil.
We may recognize truth in heathen systems, while we deplore their
errors, for Christ himself is the Truth. It is the single grain of truth
in these systems that has given them all their power. They never could
have maintained their hold upon the world, if they had not appealed to
some good instincts of the human heart. A coin made wholly of lead will
never pass for a dollar. It must have a little washing of silver to give
it any sort of currency. But it is a counterfeit, for all its silver
washing. So these heathen systems have their grain of truth, but they
are false and soul-destroying all the same. Let us recognize candidly
the grains of truth which they c