may be added to it, but none can be enjoyed without it. The more largely it is given, the more extended is the benefaction, and therefore every multiplication of it becomes an ampler display of the magnificent and illimitable benevolence of its bestower!" It is true that they all live to die, and hold their life on the condition of universal sacrifice; a sacrifice produced by their various instincts impelling them to devour each other; but, if it were not so, their life, so far from securing the amount of happiness which is now enjoyed, would necessarily diminish it, and render their existence a curse rather than a blessing.

In addition to these observations, which are abundantly established by innumerable facts, we doubt not the existence of unknown compensations, as well as of those which are obvious to the slightest attention, which more than counterbalance the pains and sufferings of animated nature, and which would prove that, so far from being inconsistent with infinite goodness, they are a wise and beneficent part of its administration. The present constitution of nature, so far as it is undisturbed by the cruelty and selfishness of man, and for the rest man alone is responsible, can

reflect no dishonour upon the Supreme Ruler, in whose hand is the breath of every living thing.

If there be pain, there is also enjoyment; suffering, wherever it is found, met by a compensatory principle, operating through the universal system, is reduced to its minimum; while happiness is increased to the largest possible amount compatible with the existence of a world where moral evil has obtained a habitation, and which must therefore, to a certain extent, be regarded as an object of the Divine displeasure. Yet it is not abandoned, nor is it a place of punishment. It does not, as some affirm, present a scene of unvarying destruction, nor, in the proper sense of the term, is destruction any where to be found. Sacrifice there is; but sacrifice ministering to life, and securing the harmonies and the happiness of the living. It is the restraint which Almighty power has imposed upon sentient existence, for the purpose of multiplying its objects, and augmenting its felicity. The law of power and the law of love are in perfect unison; they do not disturb, they only sustain each other.

Combinations so various, connexions so intimate, adaptations so precise, in which enjoyment and

pain, life and death, strangely contrast and succeed each other, harmonizing into one great system all their apparently antagonist elements, cannot fail to force upon us the conviction that they are not the mere accidents of existence, the effects of fortuitous chance, but the arrangements and operations of a supreme and all-powerful intelligence.* "Human beings, brutes, fish, insects, serpents, vegetables, appear to be all varieties of pleasurable, or pleasure-giving vitality, necessary to the harmony and completeness of the music of this state of being, the worst discords of which seem destined to be done away, leaving so much contrast as shall add another perfect orb to the sphere."

* See Appendix A.

SECTION II.

THAT ANIMALS AND A LARGE PROPORTION OF THE INFERIOR CREATURES SUFFER BY THE CRUEL AGENCY OF MAN.

WHEN man rebelled against God, the curse of his apostacy, the sin of Paradise, was a shock to the universe. Then was disturbed that beautiful order and amity which Eden exhibited when hostility was unknown to its harmless tenants, who, awed by the presence of their great superior and lord, literally realized the enchanting vision which prophecy has disclosed as the distinguishing glory of the millennial age, "the wolf dwelt with the lamb, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together," the asp and the cockatrice caused no alarm. There was nothing to hurt or to destroy." When man became an exile, and was driven from this scene of surpassing loveliness, the confidence

which he had inspired in the creatures subject to his power, was succeeded by fear and dread. Wild and untameable, the beasts of prey sought independence in the jungle and in the wilderness. The work of general destruction commenced, which has continued without interruption or abatement down to the present hour, its miseries aggravated and increased by the cruel agency of man. Great stress is laid by the inspired historian, on the violence of the antediluvian world. Repeatedly does he affirm that the earth was filled with violence; and that this violence did not spend its fury on one species, but extended its ravages to all, is probable from the expression of Divine indignation against its human inhabitants, "the earth is filled with violence through them; behold I will destroy them with the earth," Gen. vi. 13. After the flood, the authority of man over the whole of the brute creation was restored to him by the express ordination of heaven. Even if this decree had not been formally issued from the throne of the Eternal, and recorded in the Scriptures, the superiority of man as a rational animal would have enabled him to sustain his dominion over them. Distinguished by that one capacity, which