3

here. And this can only be done by ur to amend and the prayers of their refore, a good and holy thing to pray they may be loosed from the chain of nds them down, as a ship is chained e earth.

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

that mysterious problem, the Origin of said by the Parsees to have taught that ut not on that account opposing-prinnich he calls Twins', were inherent in

were set in action by Him, as His of maintaining the continuity of the one was constructive, the other decreated, moulded, and fashioned, while Dosed and disintegrated, but only to coThere could be no life without death, evil." Such opposites appeared to be ne eternal and immutable law of cony antagonism was between the resulting brought about by the free agent man, > own free will and election.2

we read in the Bible, "I am the Lord, and Ise. I form the light and create darkness : and create evil: I, the Lord, do all these

I show you truth! Lower than hell,
r than heaven, outside the utmost stars,
than Brahm doth dwell.

beginning, and without an end,
ace eternal and as surety sure;
a power which moves to good,
its laws endure.

Ahriman.

'entury, Jan. 1881, p. 170.

6, 7.

.0.

Ezekiel xiv, 9; xx, 25. See also Numbers,

272

Plas Tref Gaian and Aberdunant, remarks, "The Welsh have stronger perceptive powers, and dream far more vividly than the English. Their hands mostly have the delicate, shapely proportions of imaginative natures, such as would make us believe that the influence of the stars survived in them; though the belief in the creed and knowledge of Zoroaster and the Magi, with regard to planetary influences, has passed away here, yet it still exists as strongly as ever in the East."

The moral condition of the wicked man must be very much the same after death as it was at the time of his departure from this life, nothing having intervened to alter it. He has left behind him his outward fleshly covering, and in his inner man has passed into another sphere; but with whatever sense of unrelieved guilt he has made the passage, he must remain loaded as he enters upon the new scene to which he has been transferred; the guilt attaching to the inner man, and not embracing the fleshly garment he has cast off and abandoned, to be dissolved into its elementary particles in the grave. It is time that the world should give attention. to the gospel of humanity, founded upon the true perceptions and necessities of their souls, wherein their Maker is their friend, equally in the life to come as He confessedly is in this life; wherein there is the recognition of something in every man upon which He can act for their ultimate good; and wherein there is the certainty that He who has undertaken for them will not withdraw His hand until He has accomplished His work, and brought all His creatures to the recog nition of Himself and a willing conformity to Him in all things. It is, therefore, a good and holy thing to pray for those who have passed away, that they may be loosed

from the burden of their sins, so that they may reach a higher and brighter region. For the heavy weight of their guilt will chain them down to the earth, where their affections are, or where they have committed evil deeds, till they are released by prayer and penance from the load that binds them down, and prevents their rising

to their proper sphere. And this can only be done by their own endeavour to amend and the prayers of their friends. It is, therefore, a good and holy thing to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from the chain of ins, which binds them down, as a ship is chained r to the earth.

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

gard to that mysterious problem, the Origin of aster is said by the Parsees to have taught that osite-but not on that account opposing-prinforces, which he calls Twins', were inherent in ture, and were set in action by Him, as His d mode of maintaining the continuity of the The one was constructive, the other dee. One created, moulded, and fashioned, while er decomposed and disintegrated, but only to coenergy. There could be no life without death, d without evil." Such opposites appeared to be ed by some eternal and immutable law of conThe only antagonism was between the resulting and evil, brought about by the free agent man, ding to his own free will and election.2

nd again, we read in the Bible, "I am the Lord, and e is none else. I form the light and create darkness: ake peace, and create evil: 1, the Lord, do all these ags.

"Behold, I show you truth! Lower than hell,

Higher than heaven, outside the utmost stars,
Farther than Brahm doth dwell.

"Before beginning, and without an end,
As space eternal and as surety sure;
Is fixed a power which moves to good,
Only its laws endure.

"Out of the dark it wrought the heart of man,
Out of dull shells the pheasant's pencilled neck;
Ever at toil, it brings to loveliness

All ancient wrath and wreck.

"It slayeth and it saveth, nowise moved,

Except unto the working out of doom;

Its threads are Love and Light, and Death and Pain
The shuttles of its loom."

That these statements are incontestably true, we may be perfectly certain by what we learn from the study of geology, for "from whatever point we contemplate the history of the earth, the instability of the conditionswhether mechanical, biological, or climatic-to which it has been subjected, stands forth prominently. The story is simply that of changes wrought by instruments. employed over and over again in building up and pulling down every portion of the fabric, to rear a yet more perfect structure upon the ruins-more clearly indicative of the force of the Creative impulse, and ever tending towards the production of new phases of life.2

"From the stratified rocks we learn the marvellous history of life. They are the records, which nothing can falsify, of a steady progress under eternal laws from lower to higher forms of being. They tell us that the earth has been the scene of life and death, pain and pleasure, for incalculable ages. The plan has ever been the same-immutable as the laws of matter-but it has been expanded by gradations, always, as far as we can judge, tending to a higher order of things: Geology teaches us in unmistakable language that the land and water have changed places repeatedly, that continents have sunk, that oceans have been filled up, that both inorganic and organic rocks have been raised into mountain chains, that there has been a long succession of forms of life appearing and disappearing through cycles of time, whose vastness we cannot fully comprehend. 1 Edwin Arnold, The Light of Asia.

2 Chapters from the Physical History of the Earth, by Nichols. (Kegan Paul and Co., London.) Price five shillings.

J.

s are, or where they have committed evi ey are released by prayer and penance from

Thousands of years must be as seconds of time to him. who would compute the earth's age, and whole species and genera of plants and animals are but as so many finely graduated marks on the great scale of life-duration." Dr. Charles Darwin, in his work on The Origin of Species, says: "When I view all beings, not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived before the Cambrian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the world. There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms, or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on, according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple. a beginning, endless forms, most beautiful and most wonderful, have been and are being evolved."

"The series of diverse forms which every individual of a species passes through from the earliest dawn of its existence is simply a short and rapid recapitulation of the series of specific multiple forms through which its progenitors have passed, the ancestors of the existing species throughout the enormous duration of the geological periods; and for innumerable ages after his first appearance on earth, man led the life of a wild beast, but after having discovered the use of fire, he gradually arrived at the state of civilisation, in which he exists at the present time. From certain calculations Professor S. Haughton has arrived at the conclusion that the whole of geological time is represented by a minimum period of 200,000,000 years.'

A human skeleton has been discovered beneath four strata of forest growths in the delta of the Mississippi, by Dr. Dowler, who, from an examination of all the

1 Chapters from the Physical History of the Earth.

2 Hakel, Origin of Man.