not, and would not, adore in God as the highest Righteousness that which,
in man was condemned as harsh, as cruel, and as unjust.

In the midst of this long mental struggle, a change occurred in the
outward circumstances of my life. I wrote to Lord Hatherley and asked him
if he could give Mr. Besant a Crown living, and he offered us first one
in Northumberland, near Alnwick Castle, and then one in Lincolnshire, the
village of Sibsey, with a vicarage house, and an income of L410 per
annum. We decided to accept the latter.

The village was scattered over a considerable amount of ground, but the
work was not heavy. The church was one of the fine edifices for which the
fen country is so famous, and the vicarage was a comfortable house, with
large and very beautiful gardens and paddock, and with outlying fields.
The people were farmers and laborers, with a sprinkling of shopkeepers;
the only "society" was that of the neighboring clergy, Tory and prim to
an appalling extent. There was here plenty of time for study, and of that
time I vigorously availed myself. But no satisfactory light came to me,
and the suggestions and arguments of my friend Mr. D---- failed to bring
conviction to my mind. It appeared clear to me that the doctrine of
Eternal Punishment was taught in the Bible, and the explanations given of
the word "eternal" by men like Maurice and Stanley, did not recommend
themselves to me as anything more than skilful special pleading--
evasions, not clearings up, of a moral difficulty. For the problem was:
Given a good God, how can he have created mankind, knowing beforehand
that the vast majority of those whom he had created were to be tortured
for evermore? Given a just God, how can he punish people for being
sinful, when they have inherited a sinful nature without their own choice
and of necessity? Given a righteous God, how can he allow sin to exist
for ever, so that evil shall be as eternal as good, and Satan shall reign
in hell, as long as Christ in Heaven? The answer of the Broad church
school was, that the word "eternal" applied only to God and to life which
was one with his; that "everlasting" only meant "lasting for an age", and
that while the punishment of the wicked might endure for ages it was
purifying, not destroying, and at last all should be saved, and "God
should be all in all". These explanations had (for a time) satisfied Mr.
D----, and I find him writing to me in answer to a letter of mine dated
M