Considering the endless chances of failure, if the world were left to
chance; and I may say, the absolute certainty of failures, if the world
were left to the blind competition of merely physical laws, is it not
only of the Lord's mercies that we are not failures too? that we have not
been born crippled, blind, deaf, dumb--what not?--by the effect of
circumstances over which we have had no control; which have been working,
it may be, for generations past, in the organizations of our ancestors?

But what shall we say of those who have not received what we have
received? What shall we say of those who, like the deaf and dumb, are,
in some respects at least, failures--instances in which the laws which
regulate our organization have not succeeded in effecting a full
development?

We can say this, at least, without entangling and dazzling ourselves in
speculations about final causes; without attempting to pry into the
mystery of evil.

We can say this: That if there be a God--as there is a God--these
failures are not according to His will. The highest reason should teach
us that; for it must tell us that in the work of the Divine Artist, as in
the work of the human, imperfection, impotence, disorder of any kind,
must be contrary to the mind and will of the Creator. The highest
reason, I say, teaches us this. And Scripture teaches it like wise. For
if we believe our Lord to have been as He was--the express image of the
Almighty Father; if we believe that He came--as He did come--to reveal to
men His Father's will, His Father's mind, His Father's character: then we
must believe that He acted according to that will and according to that
character, when He made the healing of disease, and the curing of
imperfections of this very kind, an important and an integral part of His