Those whose responsible position in public life, or comprehensive sphere of intellectual activity, enable them to take in at one glance all the various elements of evil and pernicious principles and destructive tendencies which are so actively at work in our days, will not, perhaps, be disposed to regard these remarks as groundless or exaggerated; others, perhaps, may make a mock at them--but they may go on in their delusion for a while. In conclusion, I have but three observations to add. The first regards the divine permission of evil, and is intended to form a supplement to that Theodicée which I have attempted, in the only way that such a justification of the divine ways is permissible to man, by appealing, viz., to his feelings, rather than by attempting to force his conviction by the rigor of demonstration. The full justification of the ways of Providence is reserved for a future day, when all mouths shall be stopped, whether that awful crisis be near at hand or yet tarries for a while. If, now, the human race be actually sick and in a sickly state, as indeed can not well be denied, then must God’s overruling providence in the affairs of the world be judged of in the same light as, and be compared to, the wise treatment of a skillful physician. For as the latter, in the case of a patient whose death was to be apprehended from a total prostration of his bodily powers and energy, might wish for or even venture to super-induce a violent paroxysm, in the hope that in it he might perhaps be able to throw off his fatal lethargy; even so, in God’s government of the world, those predetermined counsels, which seem so singular, but, nevertheless, are so expressly foretold, may have a somewhat similar design. In the times of the last struggle the power of darkness will probably work itself to death on the earth; and while the remnant shall come out of the crisis and fiery trial purer and healthier, the divine truth is to gain a complete triumph over sin and death.