Some one has remarked that it is the whole tragedy, and ultimately the whole power of the Christian religion, that it is attacked from every side. It is accused of faults that are hopelessly inconsistent with each other. One day it is charged with making man too responsible; the next, with not making him responsible enough. The truth is, that we need not try to make man too responsible in order to make him responsible enough. It has often been pointed out, that the Christian religion is by turns optimistic and pessimistic. St. Paul is pessimist enough where he says: "For I know that in me--that is, in my flesh--dwelleth no good thing." But who so optimistic as the same Apostle when he declares: "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Much of the secret of it, under God, is in a cultivated and consecrated will. Every matter, says Epictetus, has two handles, and you can choose which handle you will take. Every man has in him some promise of the gradual supremacy of character over the accidents, happenings, forces and factors of circumstances. These may be his tests; they need not be his fate. "The real vital division of the religious part of our Protestant communities," says Wendell Holmes, "is into Christian optimists and Christian pessimists." I would rank myself among the former and say again, that the good in the conditions of our life far outweighs the ill. And while maintaining this position, I would also, as the second of the two things to be urged, have us face the question, Who is responsible for the ill there is? George Meredith, in a reference to this subject, declares that no man can _think_, and not think hopefully. Whether or not this be true in the case of every man who thinks, this can be said--it ought to be true. Instead of multiplying words to no profit over the old question, Why all this misery and suffering? let us think for a moment in another direction, and we shall perchance be encouraged to think hopefully.