“We must all of us start with a supposition,” said Charles Osmond. “There must on the one hand either be everlasting matter or everlasting force, whether these be two real existences, or whether matter be only force conditioned, or, on the other hand, you have the alternative of the everlasting 'He.' You at present base your belief on the first alternative. I base mine on the last, which, I grant you, is at the outset the most difficult of the two. I find, however, that nine times out of ten the most difficult theory is the truest. Granting the everlasting 'He,' you must allow self-consciousness, without which there could be no all powerful, all knowledge-full, and all love-full. We will not quarrel about names; call the Everlasting what you please. 'Father' seems to me at once the highest and simplest name.”
“But evil!” broke in Erica, triumphantly. “If He originates all, he must originate evil as well as good.”
“Certainly,” said Charles Osmond, “He has expressly told us so. 'I form the light and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these things.'”
“I recollect now, we spoke of this two or three years ago,” said Erica. “You said that the highest good was attained by passing through struggles and temptations.”
“Think of it in this way,” said Charles Osmond. “The Father is educating His children; what education was ever brought about without pain? The wise human father does not so much shield his child from small pains, but encourages him to get wisdom from them for the future, tries to teach him endurance and courage. Pain is necessary as an element in education, possibly there is no evolution possible without it. The father may regret it, but, if he is wise, knows that it must be. He suffers twice as much as the child from the infliction of the pain. The All-Father, being at once all-knowing and all-loving, can see the end of the education while we only see it in process, and perhaps exclaim: 'What a frightful state of things,' or like your favorite 'Stephen Blackpool,' 'It's all a muddle.'”
“And the end you consider to be perfection, and eternal union with God. How can you think immortality probable?”
“It is the necessary outcome of belief in such a God, such a Father as we have spoken of. What! Could God have willed that His children whom He really loves should, after a time, fade utterly away? If so, He would be less loving than an average earthly father. If He did indeed love them, and would fain have had them ever with Him, but could not, then He would not be all-powerful.”
“I see you a universalist, a great contrast to my Early Father here, who gloats over the delightful prospect of watching from his comfortable heaven the tortures of all unbelievers. But, tell me, what do you think would be our position in your unseen world? I suppose the mere realization of having given one's life in a mistaken cause would be about the most terrible pain conceivable?”
“I think,” said Charles Osmond, with one of his grave, quiet smiles, “that death will indeed be your 'gate of life,' that seeing the light you will come to your true self, and exclaim, 'Who'd have thought it?'”
The every day language sounded quaint, it made Erica smile; but Charles Osmond continued, with a brightness in his eyes which she was far from understanding: “And you know there are to be those who shall say: 'Lord when saw we Thee in distress and helped Thee?' They had not recognized Him here, but He recognized them there? They shared in the 'Come ye blessed of my Father.'”