Now, geology furnishes us with many examples, in which agencies, often fraught with terrific evils, are nevertheless eminently beneficial when the whole extent of their operation is taken into account. Why is it not a fair inference that, in all other cases where evils stand out prominently, they are only incidental results of some wide system of operations, of which our limited vision embraces only a part, but whose tendencies as a whole are eminently salutary, and whose incidental evils do, in fact, increase the salutary effects? If so, what reason have we to believe that, when the light of eternity shall clarify our mental eye, and enlarge our knowledge of the present system of the universe, we shall find all "partial evil to be universal good," and that our narrow views alone threw obscurity and difficulty over this subject in this life? O, if even here so many rays of divine love find their way into our narrow prison-house, what will be their brightness when they pour in upon us from the unveiled glories of the heavenly world! LECTURE VII. DIVINE BENEVOLENCE AS EXHIBITED IN A FALLEN WORLD. The geological proofs of the divine benevolence considered in the last lecture present only a partial view of that glorious characteristic of Jehovah. I am tempted, therefore, to exhibit it in its more general aspect and broader relations. This will necessarily bring into view other important religious truths respecting man's fallen condition and character, and, as a consequence, the modified aspect of the divine goodness in such a world. To those destitute of a revelation this world has, indeed, ever seemed an inextricable maze, an enigma too dark for human wisdom to solve. Nor have those favored with the Bible agreed in their modes of clearing up the mystery. Having endeavored to explain all by following out some leading and favorite idea, their theories have varied as these predominant conceptions differed. One, for instance, fixes his gaze so intently upon the divine benevolence that he is blind to every manifestation of Jehovah's sterner attributes. Another, deeply impressed with the story of man's original apostasy, sees only vindictive justice, and penal infliction, and disordered action, in all the movements of nature and the trials and sufferings of man. A third, captivated by the discoveries of modern geology, relative to the existence of suffering and death in the world before man's creation, and learning, moreover, from physiology, that death is a general law of all organized natures, vegetable as well as animal, is led to doubt whether the disorders of the world have any important connection with man's apostasy. Now, it were easy to show that our views on these subjects have a most important bearing upon our entire system of theology; and, therefore, they deserve our most thorough and candid examination. To such an examination I now invite your serious attention.