An Appeal to the People in Behalf of Their Rights as Authorized Interpreters of the Bible

by Catharine Esther Beecher

These varied combinations also give scope to the virtues of pity, tenderness, patience, mercy, justice, self-denial, and many other graces that could not be called into being without all the disparities, social, domestic, intellectual, and moral, that we find existing. Meantime the principle of habit and the power of the will give abundant opportunities for modifying these natural peculiarities to accommodate to varying circumstances.

To these indications of benevolent design may be added the “nature” of the bodily system, and the “nature” of the material world without. In examining the body we inhabit, so nicely adjusted, so perfectly adapted to our necessities, so beautifully and harmoniously arranged, so “fearfully and wonderfully made,” it is almost beyond the power of numbers to express the multiplied contrivances for ease, comfort, and delight.

We daily pursue our business and our pleasure, thoughtless of the thousand operations which are going on, and the busy mechanism employed in securing the objects we desire. The warm current that is flowing from the centre to the extremities, with its life-giving energies, and then returning to be purified and again sent forth; the myriads of branching nerves that are the sensitive discerners of good or ill; the unnumbered muscles and tendons that are contracting and expanding in all parts of our frame; the nicely-adjusted joints, and bands, and ligaments, that sustain, and direct, and support; the perpetual expansion and contraction of the vital organ; the thousand hidden contrivances and [pg 125] operations of the animal frame, all are quietly and constantly performing their generous functions, and administering comfort and enjoyment to the conscious spirit that dwells within.

Nor is the outer world less busy in performing its part in promoting the great design of the Creator. The light of suns and stars is traversing the ethereal expanse in search of those for whom it was created; for them it gilds the scenes of earth, and is reflected in ten thousand forms of beauty and of skill. The trembling air is waiting to minister its aid, fanning with cool breezes, or yielding the warmth of spring, sustaining the functions of life, and bearing on its light wing the thoughts that go forth from mind to mind, and the breathings of affection that are given and returned. For this design earth is sending forth her exuberance, the waters are emptying their stores, and the clouds pouring forth their treasures. All nature is busy with its offerings of fruits and flowers, its wandering incense, its garnished beauty, and its varied songs. Within and without, above, beneath, and around, the same Almighty Beneficence is found still ministering to the wants and promoting the happiness of the minds he has formed for ever to desire and pursue this boon.

We are now prepared to meet the questions proposed, (i.e.) is the Creator a being who, with the varying humors of man, sometimes prefers evil to good, and sometimes prefers good to evil, or does he invariably choose what is best for all, even in cases where it may involve personal sacrifices and suffering to himself?

In attempting to answer this question, we have set [pg 126] forth the evidence to be found in the works of the Creator which establishes the position that his chief end or ruling purpose is to produce the greatest possible happiness with the least possible evil.

The question then reads, does the Creator destroy happiness and cause needless pain, and thus thwart his own chief desire and great end; the end for which he made all things?

The very statement of the question is its most forcible answer.

We have seen that we are obliged to conceive of God as possessing such a social and moral nature as our own. This would lead him to desire the veneration, confidence, love, and gratitude of the children he has created.

But he has formed their minds to hate selfishness and to admire and reverence self-sacrificing benevolence. Will the Creator then oppose his own chief end and grand design by conduct which would make all his creatures necessarily, by the nature he implanted, withhold their respect and love, and feel only dislike and contempt? The very question involves its own answer.