t man--delicate
creature!--has more refined intuitions of right and wrong, and knows
better what they are, than God himself? Now, Mr. Newman and you
affirm, that to suppose God should have enjoined the destruction of
the Canaanites is a contradiction of our moral intuitions; and that
for this and similar reasons you cannot believe the Bible to be the
word of God. I answer, that the things I have mentioned are in still
more glaring contradiction to such 'intuitions'; than which none
appears to me more clear than this,--that the morally innocent
ought not to suffer; and I therefore doubt whether the above
phenomena are the work of God. I must refuse, on the very same
principle on which Mr. Newman disallows the Bible to be a true
revelation of such a Being, to allow this universe to be so.
In equally glaring inconsistency is the entire administration of
this lower world with what appears to me a first principle of moral
rectitude,--namely, that he who suffers a wrong to be inflicted on
another, when he can prevent it, is responsible for the wrong itself.
The whole world is full of such instances."

"Ay," said Fellowes, eagerly, "we ought to prevent a wrong, provided
we have the right as well as the power to interfere."

"I am supposing that we have the right as well as the power; as, for
example, to prevent a man from murdering his neighbor, or a thief from
entering his dwelling. There are, no doubt, many acts which, from our
very limited right, we should have no business to prevent; as, for
example, to prevent a man from getting tipsy at his own table with his
own wine. But no such limitation can apply to Him who is supposed to
be the Absolute Monarch of the universe; and yet He (according to your
view) notoriously does not interpose to prevent the daily commission of
the most heinous wrongs and cruelties under which the earth has groaned,
and hearts have been breaking, for thousands of years. You will say,
perhaps, that in all such instances we must believe that there are some
reasons for His conduct, though we cannot guess what they are. Ah! my
friend, if you come to believing, you may believe also that the
difficulties involved in the Scriptural representations of the Divine
character and proceedings are susceptible of a similar solution. If you
come to believing, I think the Christian can believe as well as you, and
rather more consistently. But let me proceed." He then read on.

It is plain, that, in accordance w