come no more than
nursery tales. The text-books of astronomy and geology work their way
in between the questions and answers of the time-honored catechisms.
The doctrine of evolution, so far as it is accepted, changes the whole
relations of man to the creative power. It substitutes infinite hope in
the place of infinite despair for the vast majority of mankind. Instead
of a shipwreck, from which a few cabin passengers and others are to be
saved in the long-boat, it gives mankind a vessel built to endure the
tempests, and at last to reach a port where at the worst the passengers
can find rest, and where they may hope for a home better than any which
they ever had in their old country. It is all very well to say that men
and women had their choice whether they would reach the safe harbor or
not.

"Go to it grandam, child;
Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will
Give it a plum, a cherry and a fig."

We know what the child will take. So which course we shall take depends
very much on the way the choice is presented to us, and on what the
chooser is by nature. What he is by nature is not determined by himself,
but by his parentage. "They know not what they do." In one sense this is
true of every human being. The agent does not know, never can know, what
makes him that which he is. What we most want to ask of our Maker is an
unfolding of the divine purpose in putting human beings into conditions
in which such numbers of them would be sure to go wrong. We want an
advocate of helpless humanity whose task it shall be, in the words of
Milton,

"To justify the ways of God to man."

We have heard Milton's argument, but for the realization of his vision
of the time

"When Hell itself shall pass away,
And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day,"

our suffering race must wait in patience.

The greater part of the discourse the reader has had before him was
delivered over the teacups one Sunday afternoon. The Mistress looked
rather grave, as if doubtful whether she ought not to signify her
disapprobation of what seemed to her dangerous doctrine.

However, as she knew that I was a good church-goer and was on the best
terms with her minister, she said nothing to show that she had taken the
alarm. Number Five listened approvingly. We had talked the question
over well, and were perfectly agreed on the main point. How could it be
otherwise? Do you suppose that any intellectual, spiritual wo