stop it: the old dilemma faced me unceasingly. "If he can prevent it, and
does not, he is not good; if he wishes to prevent it, and cannot, he is
not almighty;" and out of this I could find no way of escape. Not yet had
any doubt of the existence of God crossed my mind.

In August, 1872 Mr. D---- tried to meet this difficulty. He wrote:

"With regard to the impassibility of God, I think there is a stone wrong
among your foundations which causes your difficulty. Another wrong stone
is, I think, your view of the nature of the _sin_ and _error_ which is
supposed to grieve God. I take it that sin is an absolutely necessary
factor in the production of the perfect man. It was foreseen and allowed
as a means to an end--as in fact an _education_.

"The view of all the sin and misery in the world cannot grieve God, any
more than it can grieve you to see Digby fail in his first attempt to
build a card-castle or a rabbit-hutch. All is part of the training. God
looks at the ideal man to which all tends. The popular idea of the fall
is to me a very absurd one. There was never an ideal state in the past,
but there will be in the future. The Genesis allegory simply typifies the
first awakening of consciousness of good and evil--of two _wills_ in a
mind hitherto only animal-psychic.

"Well then--there being no occasion for grief in watching the progress of
his own perfect and unfailing plans--your difficulty in God's
impassibility vanishes. Christ, _quâ_ God, was, of course, impassible
too. It seems to me that your position implies that God's 'designs' have
partially (at least) failed, and hence the grief of perfect benevolence.
Now I stoutly deny that any jot or tittle of God's plans can fail. I
believe in the ordering of all for the best. I think that the pain