Page:The kernel and the husk (Abbott, 1886).djvu/112

96 reject the spiritual doctrine of an Evil in the world resisting the Good, although both doctrines alike have been grossly and harmfully misinterpreted.

Of course it is possible that in our notions of spiritual personality, and therefore in our personification of Satan, we may be under some partial illusion. The subject teems with difficulties; and I have not concealed from you my opinion that some passages in the Old Testament appear to support a view at variance with the tenour of the New. The real truth, while justifying our Lord's language, may not accord with all our inferences as to its meaning; and I should myself admit that it would be most disastrous to attempt to personify the Adversary with the same vividness with which we personify the Father in heaven. Still,—in answer to the taunt of the agnostic or sceptic, "Is this, or that, the work of the God whom you describe as Love?"—I think we avail ourselves of our truest and most effective answer, when we resolve to separate certain aspects of Nature from the intention of God, and to say, with Christ, "An enemy hath done these things."