“The existence of dangerous animals has ever been a thorn in the side of theologians, and the most comical arguments have been used to justify their existence” (_ibid._) This is not true. No theologian has ever denied that dangerous animals fulfil some design in nature. And as to “comical arguments,” I think, doctor, that it is in your pages that we can best find them. “We know, on the other hand, that very innocent, or even useful, animals have become extinct, without nature taking any means to preserve their existence” (p. 95). This proves nothing at all. If God’s design could be fulfilled with their extinction, why should they have been preserved? “For what purpose are the hosts of diseases and of physical evils in general? Why that mass of cruelties and horrors which nature daily and hourly practises on her creatures? Could a being acting from goodness and benevolence endow the cat, the spider, and man with a nature capable of these horrors and cruelties?” (p. 96). This is the dark side of the picture; and yet there is design in all this. If I wished to make a “comical argument,” I might say that “the hosts of diseases” are, after all, very profitable to the M.D., who cannot live without them. But the true answer is, that the present order of things, as even the pagan philosophers recognized, is designed as a period of probation preparatory to a better life. We now live on a field of battle, amid trials calculated to stir up our energies and to mend or improve our character. We sow in tears, that we may reap in joy. Such is the design of a Being “acting from goodness and benevolence.” You do not understand this; but such is the truth. As to cats and spiders, you must bear in mind that they are not worse than the wolf, the tiger, or other animals providing for their own subsistence by the destruction of other living beings. If this be “cruelty,” how can you countenance it yourself by allowing the appearance at your table of killed animals?