But what is all this compared with the character that thousands ascribe to the God, who rules above?  It is no more than the drop to the unmeasured ocean:  because those five children would soon cease to suffer; but God, they contend, will torture without mercy or end, millions on millions of his poor dependent creatures for the sins of a short life!  The most abandoned, and unrelenting savage, that roams the American forest—­the worst wretch in human form would not do this, but release, at length, the sufferer from pain.  And those, who contend that God will not release, but on the contrary involve the victim of his ire deeper in who, attribute to him a character infinitely worse, than the most cruel and degraded of our race, and no argument, to the contrary, can be for one moment maintained.  If a man desire the holiness and happiness of all his fellow creatures, and would bring them to a glorified state of beatitude in heaven, had he the power, and still contends that God will not, it is elevating his goodness far above the goodness of God.  And for any man to come forward with this acknowledgment on his lips, and yet address the benignant Parent of all, and, in prayer, acknowledge him to be the best of all beings, is only using words without propriety or meaning.  There is no sense, no reason in such logic.  It completely contradicts itself, and what is contradictory cannot be true.

Would you save all men from sin and its attendant misery if you could?  O yes, is the answer, I would, and carry them all in the arms of unbounded benevolence to glory.  Well, has God the power to do it?  Yes, is the reply.  But do you believe that he will exert his power so as to accomplish it?  No says the objector, I believe that he will sentence a large portion of his erring offspring to endless and inconceivable wo.  Very well; then you are the best being of the two.  And it is a melancholy circumstance to these unfortunate beings, that you are not on the throne of the universe.  If this be so, then our text ought to be reversed.  God ought to copy your tenderness, and forgive men as you do!  We are certainly called upon to conform our conduct to the best standard, and to imitate the best being.  If you are the best, then God and man ought to be called upon, and entreated to imitate you!  No; says the objector, God is superlatively the best being in the universe.  You may talk, and tell me so, till the morning sun sinks beyond the western hills, and yet your creed will contradict every word you utter.  What you have just acknowledged, unchangeably stares you in the face.  You say, that you would forgive all, save them from sin, and raise them to a blessed eternity, if you had the power.  This power, you say, God possesses, and yet you believe, and that he will not do it.  It is certainly an unfortunate circumstance to the human family, if their Father in heaven is destitute of that goodness which you feel!  From whom did you receive all those compassionate