title="[Pg 45]"/> have done it unto me.’ Moreover, Jesus said: ‘For God so loved the world, that he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ From these words of Jesus we see that there is love manifested in the dealings of God with the inhabitants of our world. Were it not so, there would nothing remain but a ‘fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.’

“On the other hand, I conclude that God made the world as the dwelling-place, not of obedient, holy children, but of those who are disobedient, fallen, and alienated. These disobedient and alienated ones he holds under discipline and chastisement, in order to keep their wickedness in check, to recover them from their sins, and train them up in virtue and holiness, or to remove from the obstinate and incorrigible all excuse for their sins and all plea against their final condemnation. In doing this he glorifies himself by manifesting his wisdom, goodness, mercy, and holiness.

“This opinion seems probable from the fact that this is the purpose for which God has actually used and is now using the world. Here he keeps and governs the human race. This race is made up neither of holy beings nor of hopeless reprobates. They are the creatures of God; fallen indeed, yet loved; sinful, but objects of divine compassion; deserving of righteous wrath, but the recipients of the offers of salvation through Christ. Even penitent believers in Christ and devoted servants of God are not free from evil propensities, but need to be kept under constant training and discipline. This is the use to which the Creator has actually put the world. Is it not reasonable to believe that he designed it for their use? Ought we to believe that God planned the world for an object for which it never has been and never will be employed?

“If sin were removed from the world, the chief part of human suffering would be removed. This no man can deny. Wars would cease; the want, disease, and woe resulting from selfishness, idleness, and vice would disappear, and nothing would stand between man and his Maker. What new life and joy would fill the world if free communication were restored between man and God, and the divine smile were again to enlighten the world! It would seem that heaven had enlarged her borders to embrace this earthly ball. But the fact would still remain that this physical world is unfitted to be the dwelling-place of sinless beings. The constitution of the world would bring upon them pains and evils which would seem a most unworthy heritage for loving and obedient children of our heavenly Father. Let sin be taken away, and wearisome toil in subduing the earth would remain. The soil of the earth is hard and clogged with stones, and clammy with stagnant waters, and sown well with the seeds of noxious weeds, and overgrown with thorns and thistles. Endless watchfulness and toil is the price of a livelihood. With the sweat of his face man must eat his bread. An army of enemies have pre-empted the soil which man must till. This state of things the word of God refers to sin: ‘Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.’ The necessity of toiling as we do now for our daily bread, God denounced upon man as a curse on account of sin. We cannot, therefore, regard this as a suitable condition for sinless beings.

“This burden of toil is lightened by the progress of modern sciences and inventions much less than some men think. Every step of progress has been made by the sacrifice of hecatombs of human lives. From our laboratories and workshops products of human skill, rich and rare, are sent forth; but what are they but smelted and hammered and graven and woven human bones and sinews, the health and life of men? No means have been discovered by which the most necessary processes of the arts can be made otherwise than dangerous to health. Only when thousands of miserable workmen had perished was Sir Humphrey Davy’s safety-lamp invented; and now the danger, to say nothing of the hard toil, of the collier’s life is only lessened, but not removed. Still, our furnaces roar and the whole tide of civilization goes on by the health-destroying servitude of men, buried alive as it were in the dark bosom of the earth. Would that seem to be a fitting employment for the sinless children of the all-loving Father? Employés in many kinds of manufacture slowly sink under the accumulated evils of daily toil, and no means of making their employments healthful have been discovered. The friction-match, which has become so nearly a necessity, is made by a process so destructive to health that only a certain class of laborers can be prevailed upon to do the work. I might go on to speak of other painful circumstances in which men find themselves by the almost antagonistic attitude of Nature. But if we reject these dangerous processes of manufacture and art, we go back at once to the wooden plough, the distaff and tinder-box of primitive times, and also to primitive poverty and primitive toil, and, I may also add, to primitive exposure to the hostile and pitiless forces and inclemencies of Nature. Purge the earth of sin, and wearisome toil would still remain. Nature must be nursed and cultivated or she yields no bread. Her hostile attitude must be overcome; the thorns and thistles must be rooted out; and every step of progress, won by suffering, must be held by painful work and watchfulness; otherwise Nature returns to the wild and savage state. Relax the culture of the choicest fruit, and it begins to deteriorate; leave the best-blooded breed of cattle to itself, and it returns again to the level of native, uncultured stock.

“The inhabitants of this world are also liable at all times to diseases and destructive accidents. This condition of things could not be changed without changing the entire structure and plan of the world. Is that a fit dwelling-place for a sinless being where chilling winds one day shrivel his skin and fill his bones with rheumatic pains, and the next, sweltering heats pervade all his system with languid lassitude—where miasma lies in wait unseen to poison his blood, kindle the malignant fever, and bring him to the shades of death, and every form of accident crouches in ambush, ready to spring upon his victim unawares and tear him limb from limb? We cannot see that the absence of sin would dissipate this liability to disease and the danger of accidents. Nay, this liability and danger are written upon the very constitution of the human body. The finger of God has engraved it upon every muscle and bone and life-cell. The Creator gave the body that wonderful power called the vis medicatrix—the power of recovering from injuries and repairing damage done to itself. Pull a leg from a grasshopper and another grows in its place. By this we know that the Creator understood the liability of this little insect to lose a limb, and prepared him for it. In like manner the power in man’s body to heal a wound or join a broken bone gives us to understand that the Creator expected man to live in the midst of danger. The precaution proves the risk.

“These accidents are such as no possible carefulness could guard against. To say nothing of the fact that all our knowledge of these perils comes from a painful experience of danger and death, what care, even after ages of sad experience, could ward off the thunderbolt? What carefulness could guard against the tornado on the land, or the hurricane and the cyclone upon the sea? Who should stand sentinel against the unseen poison borne upon the