lected son asked why
he was thus treated while his brother was most carefully provided for,
the father might reply with some indignation, "You are to have plenty in
the future! My will is so drawn that when I die my great wealth will be
equally divided between you and your brother. You will then be a
millionaire with more money than you can possibly spend. So don't be
foolish about your hardships now. Learn to starve like a gentleman!" The
father's position in such a case would be just as reasonable as that of
those who think a heaven hereafter can justify an earthly hell now.

Now let us take some of the particular facts of life that puzzle us and
test them with the hypothesis of special creation, and also with the
hypothesis of reincarnation, and see which can really explain them in a
satisfactory manner. We will take some facts of real life. In a
Massachusetts prison there is an old man whose name became familiar to
many of us in our youth. He was then known as Jesse Pomeroy, the boy
murderer. The present generation scarcely knows him. But forty years or
more ago he was talked about by all the newspapers. For the crime of
murdering his playmates the boy was sent to prison for life. Why did
Pomeroy become a noted criminal in childhood? If the theory of special
creation is sound he was created and put in the world to fit himself for
a future heaven. But he was created in such fashion that he was
deficient in moral perception and he began life with an act that led to
his expulsion from society. If God created this soul as we first knew
him why was he not created with the moral balance of a law-abiding
citizen so that he could have lived long and peacefully in civilized
society and have been prepared for heaven at death? What could have been
the purpose of giving him a brain that could not think soundly and a
conscience that welcomed murder? That leads us inevitably to the
question, Why are criminals created at all? Why are idiots created? The
deeper we look into the facts of life the more unsatisfactory does the
theory of special creation become because we find a thousand things that
contradict it and show its inconsistency. If the purpose of God was to
create a heaven to be enjoyed by those who reach it we cannot see why He
should create a humanity the majority of which is incapable of ever
attaining it. If He creates them as they come into the world at birth
why are not all of them created wise and kind? Why must most