a general idea of the nature of creation. And this we may do reverently and without presumption. For is it not a law of His own instituting, that we apply,—a law that we find in His works? Is it not expressly declared, that man is formed "in God's image, after His likeness"—so that the laws of man's mind are analogous, though in a finite and infinitely inferior degree, to those of the Divie Mind? If this be so, then from the views just presented it may be seen that all created existences, whether in the material or in the spiritual world, are but out-births, productions from the mind of the Creator,—thus that the created universe is, truly, as it is so often called, a mirror of its Divine and benevolent Maker; wherein can be seen,—not indeed in thieir full glory and perfectness, but in distant and dimly reflected images and forms,—the wondrous loveliness and goodness, beauty and brightness, richness, abundance, and magnificence of the Divine attributes.
If this be so, then will be plainly seen the truth of the view, that in the creation as originally derived from God, there could have been nothing that was not beautiful and useful: it was all "good, and very good." For there was no source from which anything of an opposite character could exist—all things existent being from the Divine, and the Divine itself being altogether good. No ravenous beast—no "laughing hyæna," laughing like the night-fiends over lost souls—could have had a being fro Him: no filthy vermin, no poisonous plants, or deadly drugs could have derived existence from such a Source.
Whence, then, did they exist? Here certainly they are: whence and how did they come? This problem, we believe, may be solved. In the chapter on the ori-
