be deduced is that if you behave yourself you will marry well and have plenty of money, and if you do not behave yourself you will die an untimely death.

Yet, because in real life such things do not come to pass, sooner or later the falsehood contained in such teaching will become apparent, and, not without some shattering of faith, these false props to morality must be removed. Job, we are told, was rewarded for his patient endurance, by the return of more than all the earthly comforts he had formerly enjoyed. But, in real life, no such results are seen. There is suffering in the world quite apart from misconduct of any kind. Famines and pestilence do not spare the righteous. the righteous. "God maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."

Is it then true that Justice fails, that there is no redress for virtue and for vice, that good has no advantage over evil? The Preacher says, No, it is not true, and refers the inequalities here for adjustment hereafter. Though, in this world of sin, the wicked triumph and the righteous suffer, there are a Heaven and a Hell beyond the grave where compensation will be made. The righteous will there have joy everlasting and the unrighteous will be brought low. While the rich man suffers torments,

Lazarus rests in Abraham's bosom. This world is incomplete unless there be another to supplement it. Here God only partly reigns, elsewhere He shall be "all in all." He who lays up his treasure in Heaven shall there have abundance. Of the Atheist, who does not reckon on immortality, the Preacher says that he can have no possible motive for right; and

his rule of life must be "eat, drink and be merry for to-morrow we die."

Between the Preacher who looks to another life to redress the inequalities of this, and the Atheist who rejects the theory of immortality altogether, there is one point of kinship. Both alike regard the present state of existence as unsatisfactory, and, taken by itself, as misgoverned. One would say

that the Divine plan is thwarted, the other that justice fails, but both mean the same thing-that vice is often rewarded and virtue often made to suffer. In the case of the Atheist, this very fact has been potent in leading him to reject the idea of Divine government, and the Preacher himself confesses that, if it were not for his faith in immortality, he, too, would become an Atheist.

But some, here and there, have strongly resented these conclusions. They will not admit that the world is a failure, that, even here, the Devil has the best of everything, and, without taking any other life into the account, they, in their own hearts, "justify the ways of God to man." This they also sometimes try to do in words, though because their expression is so much below what they feel, success in convincing others does not always follow their endeavours. Mr. Emerson's essays on Compensation" and Spiritual Laws" are, perhaps, the finest attempt that has been made in this direction, as they are, too, among the very best of his writings. From these essays and elsewhere let us see what may be said on behalf of the justice of God in His government of a world where the inequalities of condition are so obvious.

Much controversy has arisen, from time to time, between the exponents of the Happiness theory, as it is called, and the upholders of Virtue "for its own sake." The former maintain that, taking Happiness in its highest sense, the pursuit of it is a legitimate aim of human life. The latter, stigmatizing this doctrine as selfish, insist that the pursuit of Virtue for itself and not for the sake of the satisfactions which accompany it, is the only worthy motive for conduct. Neither of these contenders see, what Spinoza long since affirmed, that Nature's balance is so true, and her law of Righteousness so perfect that Happiness and Virtue are not only not in opposition, but are not even mere allied forces: "Happiness is not the reward of Virtue but is Virtue itself." To say that "Happiness is our being's end and aim" is the same as to say that Virtue is our being's end and aim. The contention between the upholders of the propriety of Happiness as an end, and the upholders of the necessity of Virtue as an end, is a contention about words. There is no true Happiness without Virtue, and no true Virtue without Happiness. In striving for Happiness, we strive for Virtue, for they are not separate things-one the reward or consequence of the other-but one and the same thing.

Now, there are various forms of satisfaction : satisfaction resulting from what we call vice, for example, as well as satisfactions of virtue. We have seen how wickedness may thrive more than goodness, but we have, so far, taken it for granted that there ought to be some link of connection between virtue and this form of success. Here is the mistake. To material virtues it is right and proper that material rewards

should attach. Acuteness in trade, thrift, wise providence and forethought, these most justly should, as they do, win riches and comfort, and social rank. But spiritual virtues have no relation to such things. If a man is virtuous, must we reward him with money? Is gold to be the ultimate standard, not only for trade in the market, but for Righteousness? Shall we say that, because a man is spiritually great, his coffers should be filled, and claim that goodness shall correspond with the bank-balance? In point of fact, we too often do try to mingle things fundamentally different, as, for example, when we reward some act of heroism or self-devotion with a sum of money, or when we try to express love by making expensive presents. But in thus acting we confuse as legitimate cause and effect what, in their own. nature, are utterly different and divided.

Riches are not Happiness, nor can they, of themselves, create it. Just as Virtue is not rewarded with worldly success, so does worldly success find no reward of Happiness. He who by accumulating abundance of material means of satisfaction, hopes thereby to make himself happy, is self-deceived. As no place or rank has any monopoly of Virtue, so none can appropriate to itself Happiness. Virtue is under laws, not less sure and inevitable than natural forces, but mathematics and political economy are not the sciences which expound them.

There now dawns upon us some conception of a standard of Justice higher than ours. We see that though that poetical justice which gives back to Job his worldly goods, as a reward for his patience, is not the sort that rules the world, there is yet Justice,

otherwise ordered, on which we may rely. The Spiritual Laws of the universe are more perfect than any such rough and irregular methods as we had approved. Every act carries its own consequence and no other. Good business qualities mean business success; love given means love received; truth and virtue mean spiritual joy. We cannot grasp any one advantage without a strict conformity to the conditions which belong to it. Men try to win love by a display of wealth, or to exact it by a jealous watchfulness, and to become happy by multiplying possessions. But they get, not what they seek but something else an outward profession of regard and the animal contentment of indifference. They can in their worldly aims win only worldly rewards, and these, to an aspiring soul, never yet brought peace.

Mr. Emerson, in his essay on "Compensation," discusses at considerable length what he calls the "indifferency of Circumstance." Every excess

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causes a defect; every defect an excess.

Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse. For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something." Men, for the sake of great places in the State, must sacrifice the sweet contentment of domestic life, and to win riches, they must withdraw their time from intellectual pursuits and give them to trade. They may choose which of two they will have, but they cannot take both. As the old proverb says, "You cannot eat your cake and have it." Even "the more substantial and permanent grandeur of genius" has no