were they created from the beginning, but that they are from hell."[1]
SECTION III.
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL EVILS.
We come, now, to speak of the evils that afflict man as a social being,—as a being connected in society with his fellows. These are, indeed, well nigh innumerable: we shall have, therefore, to make a selection of a few principle ones as subjects for remark—namely, War, Tyranny, and Poverty. A consideration of these will be sufficient to answer our purpose; which is chiefly to show, that God cannot be regarded as the author of the evils and disorders that are found in human society, any more than He is the author of disease or of noxious things in nature; but that these, like all other things which cause grief and pain to man, spring from his own evil of heart: thus continuing the proofs that all physical evil is derived from moral.
WAR.
First, then, let us consider the terrible evil of War. When we think of war, such as it actually is,—striving to raise our minds above the hardening influence of custom, endeavoring to forget the familiarising records of wars which history presents, and to look at the subject in its true aspect—it really appears a thing inconceivably horrible. To see two great nations, each comprising millions of individuals, coolly resolving to
- ↑ Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 336—348.
