ere? We think not. As the despotism has changed to a constitutional
monarchy, so that will change to a republic, and the empty throne be
preserved among other curious relics of the past.

God also hides himself in history. Although unapparent on the surface of
events, his spirit is potent within them. "What," the writer asks, "is
history--with all its dark passages of horror, its stormy revolutions,
its ceaseless conflict, its tears, its groans, its blood--but the
chronicle of an ever-widening realm of light, of order, of intelligence,
wisdom, truth, and charity?" But if we admit the progress, we need not
explain it as the work of God. Bunsen wrote a book on "God in History,"
which a profane wag said should have been called "Bunsen in History;"
yet his attempt to justify the ways of God to men was not very
successful. It is simply a mockery to ask us to believe that the slow
progress of humanity must be attributed to omniscient omnipotence. A
God who can evolve virtue and happiness only out of infinite evil and
misery, and elevate us only through the agency of perpetual blood and
tears, is scarcely a being to be loved and worshipped, unless we assume
that his power and wisdom are exceedingly limited. Are we to suppose
that God has woven himself a garment of violence, evil, and deceit, in
order that we might not see too clearly his righteousness, goodness, and
truth?

It must further be observed that Christian Theists cannot be permitted
to ascribe all the good in the world to God, and all the evil to man, or
else leave it absolutely unexplained. In the name of humanity we protest
against this indignity to our race. Let God be responsible for good and
evil both, or for neither; and if man is to consider himself chargeable
with all the world's wrong, he should at least be allowed credit for all
the compensating good.

The theory of evolution is being patronised by Theists rather too
fulsomely. Not long ago they treated it with obloquy and contempt, but
now they endeavor to use it as an argument for their faith, and in doing
so they distort language as only theological controversialists can.
Changing "survival of the _fittest_" into "survival of the _best_," they
transform a physical fact into a moral law; and thus, as they think,
take a new north-west passage to the old harbor of "whatever is is
right." But while-evolution may be construed as progress, which some
would contest, it cannot be construed as the invariable s