Or, again, it is possible to arrive at a
working optimism by taking a very dismal view of everything. There
is a story of an old Calvinist minister whose daughter lay dying,
far away, of a painful disease, who wrote her a letter of
consolation, closing with the words, "Remember, dear daughter, that
all short of Hell is mercy." Of course if one can take so richly
decisive a view of the Creator's purpose for His creatures, and
look upon Hell as the normal destination from which a few, by the
overpowering condescension of God, are saved and separated, one
might find matter of joy in discovering one soul in a thousand who
was judged worthy of salvation. But this again is a clouded view,
because it takes no account of the profound and universal
preference for happiness in the human heart, and erects the
horrible ideal of a Creator who deliberately condemns the vast mass
of His creatures to a fate which He has no less deliberately
created them to abhor and dread.
Our main temptation after all lies in the fact that we are so
impatient of any delay or any uneasiness.
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