scene of existence,—that fish, reptiles, mammiferous quadrupeds, have reigned in turn,—that responsible man, “made in the image of God,” and with dominion over all creatures, ultimately entered into a world ripened for his reception; but, further, that this passing scene, in which he forms the prominent figure, is not the final one in the long series, but merely the last of the _preliminary_ scenes; and that that period to which the bygone ages, incalculable in amount, with all their well-proportioned gradations of being, form the imposing vestibule, shall have perfection for its occupant, and eternity for its duration. I know not how it may appear to others; but for my own part, I cannot avoid thinking that there would be a lack of proportion in the series of being, were the period of perfect and glorified humanity abruptly connected, without the introduction of an intermediate creation of _responsible_ imperfection, with that of the dying irresponsible brute. That scene of things in which God became Man, and suffered, _seems_, as it no doubt _is_, a necessary link in the chain. I am aware that I stand on the confines of a mystery which man, since the first introduction of sin into the world till now, has “vainly aspired to comprehend.” But I have no new reading of the enigma to offer. I know not why it is that moral evil exists in the universe of the All-Wise and the All-Powerful; nor through what occult law of Deity it is that “perfection should come through suffering.” The question, like that satellite, ever attendant upon our planet, which presents both its sides to the sun, but invariably the same side to the earth, hides one of its faces from man, and turns it to but the Eye from which all light emanates. And it is in that God-ward phase of the question that the mystery dwells. We can map and measure every protuberance and hollow which roughens the nether disk of the moon, as, during the shades of night, it looks down upon our path to cheer and enlighten; but what can we know of the other? It would, however, seem, that even in this field of mystery the extent of the inexplicable and the unknown is capable of reduction, and that the human understanding is vested in an ability of progressing towards the central point of that dark field throughout all time, mayhap all eternity, as the asymptote progresses upon its curve. Even though the essence of the question should forever remain a mystery, it may yet in its reduced and defined state, serve as a key for the laying of other mysteries open. The philosophers are still as ignorant as ever respecting the intrinsic nature of gravitation; but regarded simply as a force, how many enigmas has it not served to unlock! And that moral gravitation towards evil, manifested by the only two classes of responsible beings of which there is aught known to man, and of which a degradation linked by mysterious analogy with a class of facts singularly prominent in geologic history is