So far, however, all that has been said is fairly obvious, but the question immediately arises: Tf the Great Potter is a personality possessing nower, purpose and love, why is the vessel he has made so scarred and spoilt? and why in the moulding, is the human clay so often crushed and broken, in a manner hard to reconcile with a loving personality?
Here of course' is the real moral problem of the world and apparently we cannot hone to solve it now owing to our natural limitations. Tt would be surprising if we could:. as we can only partially explain the simplest and commonest processes of na-tore is it strange that we fail fully to understand and appreciate all the purposes and actions of the power behind nature?
The only hint we have is the undoubted fact that within limits man is free and is able to cho between good and evil. He has the vower of disobeying and defying God and only too well has he used his. prerogative. Hence the element of discord has come into the world, but knowing so little of the interrelation of the whole. why should we" be surprised 1f that discord can produce consequences beyond our ¢omprehension?
There we have to leave the problem, but for us to-night the important point is our attitude towards it. Religion, natural and revealed, testifies the existence of a personality, powerful, purpose ful and loving, the great Potter of Jeremiah's parable.
Now-if we look first andi chiefly at the crushed and broken clay, we shall criticize and blame the Potter, but if we look first at the Potter and holding fast to the be-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.