THE MORAL CONFLICT

Son of God, and Evil is the challenge of a good which dates the soûl up to possess it.

THE subject of this chapter is a spécial application of the gênerai situation disdosed in the one immediately preceding.

The Moral Conflict is a species of pain ; it is a wrestling " with prindpalities and powers" ; and its function is that of pain. It has, however, a peculiar importance of its own, and a discussion of it will serve to bring into prominence one or two matters, including the Problem of Evil, upon which Carpenter's teaching is both original and impressive.

The Moral Conflict may be described» in gênerai terms, as the struggle with temptation on the arena of the individual heart, and the warfare against evil in the wider fields of race-prpgress. Those who are sensitive to the " upward calling " of Ufe, expérience it as personal disdpUne, and as the storm and stress of social rédemption and reformation.

In any conflict, it is to the advantage of the fighter to know — ^if such is possible — precisely what end is being achieved through it. It is true that success does not dépend absolutely upon this : it is not necessary, for example, that the rank and file of an army should be aware of the objective of an engagement or of a campaign. And it may be admitted that, so far as the wider social aspect of moral effort is concerned, we —