Bs we survey the course of this wonderful evolution, it begins to become manifest that moral evil is simply the characteristic of the lower state of living as looked at from the higher state. Its existence is purely relative, yet it is profoundly real, and in a process of perpetual spiritual evolution its presence in some hideous form throughout a long series of upward stages is indispensable. Its absence would mean stagnation, quiescence, unprogressiveness. For the moment we exercise conscious choice between one course of action and another, we recognize the difference between better and worse, we foreshadow the whole grand contrast between good and bad. In the process of spiritual evolution, therefore, evil must needs be present. But the nature of evolution also requires that it should be evanescent. In the higher stages that which is worse than the best need no longer be positively bad. After the nature of that which the upward-striving soul abhors has been forever impressed upon it, amid the long vicissitudes of its pilgrimage through the dark realms of sin and expiation, it is at length equipped for its final sojourn
"In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love."
From the general analogies furnished in the process of evolution, we are entitled to hope that, as it approaches its goal and man comes nearer to God, the fact of evil will lapse into a mere memory, in which the shadowed past shall serve as a background for the realized glory of the present.
Thus we have arrived at the goal of my argument. We can at least begin to realize distinctly that unless our eyes had been opened at some time, so that we might come to know the good and the evil, we should never have become fashioned in God's image. We should have been the denizens of a world of puppets, where neither morality nor religion could have found place or meaning. The mystery of evil remains a mystery still, but it is no longer a harsh dissonance such as greeted the poet's ear when the doors of hell were thrown open; for we see that this mystery belongs among the profound harmonies in God's creation. This reflection may have in it something that is consoling as we look forth upon the ills of the world. Many are the pains of life, and the struggle with wickedness is hard; its course is marked with sorrow and tears. But assuredly its deep impress upon the human soul is the indispensable background against which shall be set hereafter the eternal joys of heaven!
THE COSMIC ROOTS OF LOVE AND SELF-SACRIFICE
O abbondante grazia, ond' io presunsi
Ficcar lo viso per la luce eterna
Tanto, che la veduta vi consunsi!
Nel suo profondo vidi che s' interna,
Legato con amore in un volume,
Ciò che per l' universo si squaderna.
Dante, Paradiso, xxxiii. 82.