“I have always tried to believe it, because I thought I ought to believe it. It has seemed to me to be dishonoring God to believe that he did not make the best possible world.”
“You are right in trying to believe what seems to be right and true, even though difficulties do lie in the way. Difficulties do not by any means show that an opinion is false. We must certainly believe that God made this world perfect for the object which he had in view in making it. But not a few skeptics deny the existence of a good, wise, righteous Creator and Governor, because they have a wrong idea of the end for which the world was created, and, consequently, a wrong idea of that in which its perfection must consist. Let me ask you a few questions which will lead your minds in the right direction. Do not men produce by cultivation better fruits and vegetables than Nature ever grows when left to herself?”
“Yes, sir,” said Ansel; “the peach and apple and potato have been brought up to their present state of excellence by great care and exertion. Originally, they were almost worthless.”
“And not only that,” said Mr. Wilton, “but when once that careful culture is relaxed they begin to return to their former badness. Again, do we not improve upon Nature by drainage and improve upon the climate by irrigation?—in fact, do not men by drainage and irrigation and all manner of culture greatly improve the natural climate of a country?”
“I think that is true,” said Ansel.
“I never thought of that before,” said Peter.
“Moreover, do you not suppose that heaven will be more beautiful than the earth, and that a thousand troublesome things besides sin—loathsome sights, discordant and jarring noises, disgusting and nauseous odors—will be absent from that ‘better land’?”
“And I never thought of that before,” said Samuel. “I am sure that many unpleasant things besides those which sin has brought into the world will not be found in heaven. I see that this world might be changed and not be made worse for holy beings to live in.”
“The world is very good,” said Mr. Wilton, “for the purpose for which it was created, but we need not look upon it as designed for a specimen of the most beautiful, pleasant, and desirable world which the Creator could produce.”
“But you have not told us,” said Peter, “what the Bible means when it says that God created all things for his own glory. Does it not mean that he made the world so good and perfect that all creatures ought to praise him on account of it?”