imperfections. If it was made by an infinite being, what reason have we
for saying that he will render it nearer perfect than it now is? If the
infinite Father allows a majority of his children to live in ignorance
and wretchedness now, what evidence is there that he will ever improve
their condition? Will god have more power? Will he become more
merciful? Will his love for his poor creatures increase? Can the
conduct of infinite wisdom, power and love ever change? Is the infinite
capable of any improvement whatever.

We are informed by the clergy that this world is a kind of school; that
the evils by which we are surrounded are for the purpose of developing
our souls, and that only by suffering can men become pure, strong,
virtuous and grand.

Supposing this to be true, what is to become of those who die in
infancy? The little children, according to this philosophy, can never
be developed. They were so unfortunate as to escape the ennobling
influences of pain and misery, and as a consequence, are doomed to an
eternity of mental inferiority. If the clergy are right on this
question, none are so unfortunate as the happy, and we should envy only
the suffering and distressed. If evil is necessary to the development
of man, in this life, how is it possible for the soul to improve in the
perfect joy of paradise?

Since Paley found his watch, the argument of "design" has been relied
upon as unanswerable. The Church teaches that this world, and all that
it contains, were created substantially as we now see them, that the
grasses, the flowers, the trees, and all animals, including man, were
special creations, and that they sustain no necessary relation to each
other. The most orthodox will admit that some earth has been washed