Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1867-12-21
SUNDAY READING.

An able medical writer, a few years
ago, wrote a work to prove that disease
is a part Of the plan of creation, nor
should any seeming exception drive US
eyeu for a moment from the strong and
constant faith that there is, in all the
works Of Providence, in nature and in
history an overriding purpose for good,
traceable more clearly and above every
thing else as the ultimate principle Of
the Divine government. A supreme
purpose for good is traceable as the
highest law of all things, so that in the
economy of the Divine government all
evil is cver being made subservient to
the production Of higher forms Of good.
Much of the evil of the world, even
moral evil, is the abuse Of something in
itself good-that is, it springs from the
defective or excessive exercise Of some
of those faculties which, as they were
originally planted and balanced in hui
man nature by the Creator, were by
Him all examined one by one, and pro-
nounced good. And as much practical
evil is the abuse Of something in itself
so good, so much error is the abuse of
some great truth. A truth taken out
Of its relation to other truths, is often
the worst sort of falsehood. Indeed, it
may perhaps be said, that all error is
the abuse of some truth, and all evil OF
something in itself good. In nature,
the most noxious aud deadly gases are
all of them, when duly mixed with the
other elements, not only harmless, but
useful and vitality essential and deadly
only when not rightly proportional and
adjusted to the rest. So moral evil, oil
deadly and wicked as it is, is so because
il is the abuse of some Of those elements
of our nature which are absolutely nee
essary, if not to our existence, at least
TO our being what w are-essential to
the production of the highest good.
The rolling thunderbolt is but a concen-
tration Of that subtlest and most essen
tial of fluids that permeates all space
Yet that, so harmless and so good, sc
much life like itself as to seem nearest
it of all creation /; yet even that, disturb
but its equilibrium, and it becomes a
once the most instant and tremendou!
agency of destruction and death.
And so, while there is not in the mora
elements of man q feature which a bt
spared, without detriment to his Original
and God-refecting nature, yet there /!
not an element SO God-like, so essential
but what distorted or altered from it
true relation and harmonious actor
with the other features Of his character
may reduce him to a scorched anc
blasted monument of the fearful ele
ments of moral power for good or fol
evil conferred in man.
We have, therefore, every reason Il
esteem this o universal principle of the
Divine government, that from all the
evil in the world, a greater good is being
educed to the universe at large than had
sin never entered the world. The grace
full swan, floating on the calm bosom Of
the lake, may dive her head for a mo,
ment in the dark waters, and rufae for
q while the s~moothness of her surface.
But soon she arises and futters her
proud wings, and shakes of with the
waters the impurities that had soiled
her plumage. Curling now her beau,
teous neck, whittier for her recent oap'
tism, she soon beholds her own recov'
cred image in the renewed calmness o.
the waters. So man, renewed by the
grace and goodness of God, reflects with
new beauty in each succeeding age thu
image Of the Deity.