These cases are actual occurrences, mentioned for emphasis only, that the problem of evil may be studied from life. These examples prove conclusively that the problem goes deeper than human depravity or free agency; both are accessories--conditions, binding cords, as it were, but the jarring stroke comes from a mightier hand.
The unregenerated heart has been called a "playground," and a "coaling station" for the headmaster of all villainies. It was more than wounded pride and vanity that propagated the scheme of Haman, whereby a whole nation was to be destroyed at a single stroke. Vengeance and hate are terrible passions, but only as they are fanned by the breath of an inhabitant of the Inferno can they go to such extremes. It was more than a desire to crush out heresy that could instigate a "St. Bartholomew's Day," then sing the Te Deum after the bloody deed was accomplished.
We shall endeavour in the subsequent pages to throw a few rays of light, in obscure corners, on the problem of evil through its multiform phases and ramifications.
"And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."--_Revelation xii. 9._
It requires but a casual survey of this problem to reach a conclusion that its hideousness cannot be explained by any other hypothesis than the power of an invisible Personality. When we scrutinize the footprints of the race, it will be found that progress has been along a dark, slimy trail; the infidels and philosophers who are loud in their boastings of inherent goodness will have difficulty in reconciling this fact. All who think are confronted with an ever-recurring question--yea, exclamations: why do such things happen? What meaneth these barbarities, ravages, cruelties? Why so much domestic discord, ending in ruin--so many suicides? Why do men and women hurl themselves over the precipice of vice and deadly indulgences--when even a novice might easily see the inevitable?
For a parallel we are reminded of an incident in war: log-chains were used when the cannon-ball supply was exhausted; lanes the width of the chain length were mowed through the ranks of the opposing army. These chasms of death were closed up each time, only to be cut down again by the next discharge. The pathway of ruin is thronged--the "broad road" is easy; however, there is something stranger than this utter blindness: the victims laugh and shout on this highway, paved as it is by the macadam of crushed humanity.