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86 IMMORTALITY. 



the power at pleasure to call forth the creative 

 energy of God. And however well the former 

 theory may have agreed with the speculative views 

 of the early Church, it would be well-nigh impos- 

 sible now-a-days to distinguish it from materialism. 

 And if the progress of science has rendered Tra- 

 ducianism untenable, has not the progress of moral 

 insight done the same for Creationism ? For it 

 surely cannot explain the different dispositions and 

 faculties of different souls by the varying excellence 

 of the Creator's work, nor make the creation of 

 souls with unequal endowments compatible with 

 divine justice, even if it be supposed that the natur- 

 ally inferior souls are judged by a more lenient 

 standard. For how can a soul that has led the 

 best life possible under very unfavourable conditions, 

 has been, e.g., a good Fuegian, be adjudged worthy 

 of heaven ? If our life on earth has any educational 

 value as a preparation for Heaven, the Fuegian would 

 be utterly unfitted for any heavenly life, which could 

 only make him supremely miserable; if it has not, he 

 (and every one else) would have to be fitted for it 

 by a miraculous fiat of the Deity. But in this case, 

 what is the use of earth-life, and why should not 

 everybody be at once transmuted into an angel or 

 devil, according as it pleased God to predestinate 

 him ? Does it convey an ennobling view of God's 

 action to call in the aid of needless miracle in order 

 to make good the original injustice of an unjustifiable 

 inequality, and is it well to save the divine justice 

 at the expense of the spiritual value of life ? 



From these and similar difTficulties it will be seen 

 that it is not merely the mania for making " conces- 

 sions to science " that has more than once prompted 

 ** liberal " divines to undertake the proof that a belief 



