“I should not be surprised,” continued the master, apparently heedless of Malcolm’s consternation, “if the day should come when well-meaning men, excellent in the commonplace, but of dwarfed imagination, refused to believe in a God on the ground of apparent injustice in the very frame and constitution of things. Such would argue, that there might be either an omnipotent being who did not care, or a good being who could not help; but that there could not be a being both all-good and omnipotent, for such would never have suffered things to be as they are.” “What wad the clergy say to hear ye, sir?” said Malcolm, himself almost trembling at the words of his master. “Nothing to the purpose, I fear. They would never face the question. I know what they would do if they could,--burn me, as their spiritual ancestor, Calvin, would have done--whose shoe-latchet they are yet not worthy to unloose. But mind, my boy, you’ve not heard me speak _my_ thought on the matter at all.” “But wadna ’t be better to believe in twa Gods nor nane ava’?” propounded Malcolm;--“ane a’ guid, duin’ the best for ’s he cud, the ither a’ ill, but as pooerfu’ as the guid ane--an’ forever an’ aye a fecht atween them, whiles ane gettin’ the warst o’ ’t, an whiles the ither? It wad quaiet yer hert ony gait, an’ the battle o’ Armageddon wad gang on as gran’ ’s ever.” “Two Gods there could not be,” said Mr Graham. “Of the two beings supposed, the evil one must be called _devil_, were he ten times the more powerful.” “Wi’ a’ my hert!” responded Malcolm. “But I agree with you,” the master went on, “that Manicheism is unspeakably better than atheism, and _unthinkably_ better than believing in an unjust God. But I am not driven to such a theory.” “Hae ye ane o’ yer ain ’at’ll fit, sir?” “If I knew of a theory in which was never an uncompleted arch or turret, in whose circling wall was never a ragged breach, that theory I should know but to avoid: such gaps are the eternal windows through which the dawn shall look in. A complete theory is a vault of stone around the theorist--whose very being yet depends on room to grow.” “Weel, I wad like to hear what ye hae agane Manicheism!” “The main objection of theologians would be, I presume, that it did not present a God perfect in power as in goodness; but I think it a far more objectionable point that it presents evil as possessing power in itself. My chief objection, however, would be a far deeper one--namely, that its good being cannot be absolutely good; for, if he knew himself unable to insure the well-being of his creatures, if he could not avoid exposing them to such foreign attack, had he a right to create them? Would he have chosen such a doubtful existence for one whom he meant to love absolutely?--Either, then, he did not love like a God, or he would not have created.” “He micht ken himsel’ sure to win i’ the lang rin.” “Grant the same to the God of the Bible, and we come back to where we were before.”