TO our limited perceptions it may seem terrible that God should curse man for his sins, and that so many tragedies should be enacted during this period of selection and probation; but surely it would be vastly more terrible if God had started life on earth, and then without a care for any of His creatures and without any final object in view, had left the earth to a million years of purposeless suffering.

ISLIP COLLYER, Conviction and Conduct, page 53