Am I to believe
that God was in any way responsible for putting a little child in that
position?--for allowing things to take shape so, if He could have checked
it? No, indeed! I do not believe in a God as helpless or as wicked as that!
There is something devilish there, for which He is not responsible, and
against which He is fighting as hard as He can."
"But doesn't heredity come in there?" said Vincent. "It isn't the child's
fault, and probably no amount of decent conditions would turn that child
into anything respectable."
"Yes," said Father Payne; "heredity is just one of the evil devices--but
don't you see the stupidity of it? It stops progress, but it also helps it
on--it hinders, but it also helps; and nothing in the world seems to me so
Divine as the way in which God is using and mastering heredity for good. It
multiplies evil, but it also multiplies good; and God has turned that
weapon against the contriver of it. The wiser that the world grows, the
more they will see how to use heredity for happiness, by preventing the
tainted from continuing to taint the races. The slow civilisation of the
world is the strongest proof I know that the battle is going the right way.
The forces of evil are being slowly transformed into the forces of good.
The waste of noble things is but the slow arrival of the new armies of
light. There is something real in fighting for a General who has a very
urgent and terrible business on hand.
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