Why an _omnipotent_ Deity should permit evil, either as necessary to produce good, or incident to laws framed for its production, must remain a mystery to me. True, _we_ cannot conceive how the world could have been ordered differently, and because _we_,--beings half of clay; beings bred amid, and nurtured upon imperfection and decay; beings who must not only sleep and eat, but pass the greater part of their temporal day in procuring the means to do so,--because WE, creatures so limited and blind, so weak of thought and dull of hearing, cannot conceive how evil could have been dispensed with, those among us who are styled _wise_ and _learned_ have thought fit to assume that the Infinite, the Omnipotent, could not have found a way! "Could not," "evil must be incident"--terms invented to express the thoughts or deeds of the children of dust. Shall they be applied to the Omnipotent? Is a confidence in the goodness of God more trying to faith, than the belief that a God exists, to whom these words, transcending our powers of conception, apply? O, no, no! "_Have faith in God!_" Strive to expand thy soul to the feeling of wisdom, of beauty, of goodness; live, and act as if these were the necessary elements of things; "live for thy faith, and thou shalt behold it living." In another world God will repay thy trust, and "reveal to thee the first causes of things which Leibnitz could not," as the queen of Prussia said, when she was dying. Socrates has declared that the belief in the soul's immortality is so delightful, so elevating, so purifying, that even were it not the truth, "we should daily strive to enchant ourselves with it." And thus with faith in wisdom and goodness,--that is to say, in God,--the earthquake-defying, rock-foundation of our hopes is laid; the sun-greeting dome which crowns the most superb palace of our knowledge is builded. A noble and accomplished man, of a later day, has said, "To credit ordinary and visible objects is not faith, but persuasion. I bless myself, and am thankful, that I lived not in the days of miracles, that I never saw Christ, nor his disciples; then had my faith been thrust upon me, nor could I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced upon those who believe yet saw not." I cannot speak thus proudly and heartily. I find the world of sense strong enough against the intellectual and celestial world. It is easy to believe in our passionless moments, or in those when earth would seem too dark without the guiding star of faith; but to _live_ in faith, not sometimes to feel, but always to have it, is difficult. Were faith ever with us, how steady would be our energy, how equal our ambition, how calmly bright our hopes! The darts of envy would be blunted, the cup of disappointment lose its bitterness, the impassioned eagerness of the heart be stilled, tears would fall like holy dew, and blossoms fragrant with celestial May ensue.