"It was not strange I saw no good in man, To overbalance all the wear and waste Of faculties, displayed in vain, but born To prosper in some better sphere: and why? In my own heart had not been made wise To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind, To know even hate is but a mask of love's, To see a good in evil, and a hope In ill success."

- Browning.

"Nothing is foreign; parts relate to whole; One all-extending, all-preserving Soul Connects each being, greatest with the least; Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast; All served, all serving; nothing stands alone; The chain holds on, and where it ends unknown. Has God, thou fool! worked solely for thy good, Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food?"

- Pope.

"Light is positive and radiates. Darkness is negative and absorbs. One is powerful, the other powerless.

"We underestimate the power of good.

"So with good and evil.

"We exaggerate the power of 'evil.'

"Evil is the weakest thing in life. It is a mirage, a temporary appearance only, and contrary to all the tides and currents of the universe.

"Good has all the forces of the Infinite behind it.

"Its power is incalculable. It never fails."

- Charles B. Newcomb.

At the very outset of life man is confronted by the greatest of all mysteries: the problem of good and evil. Within this problem is contained the solution of all the lesser questions of life that vex and perplex the mind. It is not only this problem that is the first thing to demand man's attention, but when he has solved it the world and the things of the world have lost their hold on him forever; for he has risen triumphant over sin and death; so that we might say that his solution is the Alpha and Omega of all the wisdom of the world.

In the first stages of man's life begins the personification of good and evil, and he has many gods. Whatever affects his life in a beneficial way becomes a god of good; whatever has harmful effects, becomes a god of evil.

In his worship of the gods of the good, the qualities corresponding to those he worships, come into a living existence in his own nature. In the same way the attributes with which he endows his gods of evil, find expression in his own life. He is thus constantly between two forces; one making for good and the other for evil; the one calling out for love and reverence, the other, hate and fear.

As he allows his mind to come under the sway of the one or the other, so his whole life is influenced and he becomes what his gods are. As his knowledge increases, the number of his gods decreases, until at last he has but two - a god of good and a god of evil; but his state is no better than before. The many personalities of the past have resolved themselves into the attributes of these two gods. At the very heart of man's life is the divine ideal which is eternally stedfast, which knows naught of anything save good. To some degree he is conscious of this; and instinctively he places the evil of life outside himself so, when he is guilty of any evil thing, he attributes it to the influence exerted over him by the god of evil. He shifts the weight of responsibility from his own shoulders, and the devil is made the scapegoat for his sins. When, however, he conforms to his higher ideals of good, he attributes this good to himself rather than to any external being.

The reason for these two conditions might be summed up as follows: There being no evil at the heart of life, it follows that evil must be external to the life; therefore, the responsibility of evil-doing must be placed elsewhere. But the sense of good being an innate quality of the life does not require any external being to account for it. Evil does not reach further back than the imaging faculty of the mind of man, and it comes from man's failure to comprehend the true relation of things in life; it comes from man's inability to grasp the unity of life; it comes from partial vision and undeveloped knowledge, wherein things are seen not as they are, but rather as they seem to be. There is a law of contradictions which governs the true knowledge that distinguishes between the real and the unreal; a law which eventually makes clear that "all is of God that is or is to be, and God is good."

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil shows us that the reality of good is only made evident to us through that which contradicts it - evil; that evil is not something in and of itself, but rather the dark background which brings out life's perfect picture; that it has only power as we believe in it and give it power; that it is the absence of light and of knowledge. Just as darkness is the absence of the light of the sun, so evil is the absence of the knowledge of the law of God, and exists, as darkness exists, not as a reality, but as an unreal something which shall pass away before the coming of the light of truth.

No matter at what point on the surface of life we start, no matter how evil a thing may seem to be, in the final analysis of the underlying thought or motive we find nothing but good. Good may be diverted into wrong channels, and so fail in positive expression. When the ideal is not perfectly exprest, as the law demands it shall be, the perverted good becomes apparent evil. Because of perfect law and order throughout the universe, any failure on the part of man to bring his life in accord with this law and order violates his intuitive recognition of the harmony necessary to his well-being, and results in a discordant condition which is termed evil. Let us hold clearly in mind this thought: Everything is good. Let us consider the universe as a perfect whole composed of many parts, each part having its perfect office. When, however, a part is made to do duty for other than that for which it was intended, the law is violated and an element of friction and discord is engendered, which constitutes what is termed evil. Some time it will be recognized that whatsoever man does which results in harmony and peace of mind is in reality the fulfilling of the law. It makes no difference one way or the other what the conventionally minded think, harmony is, after all, the key-note of existence.