whole soul he hates what is evil, as far as he can recognise it.
With his whole soul he loves what is good, as far as he can recognise
that. With his soul believes that there is a righteous and good God,
whose order no human folly or crime can destroy; and he will say so;
and does say it, clearly, simply, valiantly, reverently, in his
"Essay on Man." His theodicy is narrow; shallow, as was the
philosophy of his age. But as far as it goes, it is sound--faithful
to God, and to what he sees and knows. Man is made in God's image.
Man's justice is God's justice; man's mercy is God's mercy; man's
science, man's critic taste, are insights into the laws of God
himself. He does not pretend to solve the great problem. But he
believes that it is solved from all eternity; that God knows, God
loves, and God rules; that the righteous and faithful man may know
enough of the solution to know his duty, to see his way, to justify
God; and as much as he knows he tells. There were in that diseased
sensitive cripple no vain repinings, no moon-struck howls, no impious
cries against God: "Why hast thou made me thus?" To him God is a
righteous God, a God of order. Science, philosophy, politics,
criticism, poetry, are parts of His order--they are parts of the
appointed onward path for mankind; there are eternal laws for them.
There is a beautiful and fit order, in poetry, which is part of God's
order, which men have learnt ages ago, for they, too, had their
teaching from above; to offend against which is absolutely wrong, an
offence to be put down mildly in those who offend ignorantly; but
those who offend from dulness, from the incapacity to see the
beautiful, or from carelessness about it, when praise or gain tempts
them the other way, have some moral defect in them; they are what
Solomon calls fools: they are the enemies of man; and he will "hate
them right sore, even as though they were his own enemies"--which
indeed they were. He knows by painful experience that they deserve