happy forever. But, in order that they may be gifted with the highest kind of blessing and happiness, — a happiness akin to His own Divine joy, — they must be rational and intelligent creatures, formed, thus, after His own image and likeness. Such a high nature implies mental liberty. Now, those who will not abuse this liberty, but keep themselves in the original and healthful order in which they were created, are capable of receiving the eternal happiness which the good Creator designed for them; but those who, abusing their liberty, pervert and disorder their moral natures, render themselves incapable of receiving it, and, on the contrary, bring themselves into a state of unhappiness. This latter state is what is called hell — the former, heaven.
Such, then, we see, is the reason for the permission of evil in general. Slavery, as one of the natural fruits of evil — the natural offspring of man's selfishness and sin — was necessarily permitted also: the tree must bring forth its own fruit.
For that social disease, however, the Savior, when he came into the world, brought a remedy, which, in his Divine wisdom, he knew would be gradually but certainly effectual. He did not violently attack the institution of slavery, though existing all around him, and indeed throughout the known world, at that time; he made no Open assault upon it, for “he knew what was in man," — he knew better how to reach the human heart. He laid down a great law, the law of love: “Whatsoever ye would that. men should do to you, do ye even so to them." As this seed of heavenly truth became sown, and took root in the human heart,
