It has been urged by the captious critic, who would fain cast upon God all responsibility for the presence of evil in the world, that "if God does not actually determine the evil, He delegates to man the power to actualize evil; let Him only refuse his conserving efficiency to the will of man, and thus prevent the evil!" The reckless objector knoweth not what he saith. In order to render evil impossible, it is demanded that God shall rob man of his personality, and degrade him to the level of impersonal nature; for the possibility of evil is inseparable from the notion of free, self-determined existence. "The momentary withdrawment of the conserving activity of God from the moral creature were the immediate annihilation of its existence."[503] Liberty is not only a good, but it is the necessary condition of all goodness. It is the sphere of all great virtues, noble deeds, and heroic acts. There can be no virtue, no praiseworthiness, no godlikeness, no real felicity, where there is no freedom. Shall we reproach God for having made us free personalities? Shall we complain because God has honored us by committing to us a sacred trust, and placed our happiness and well-being largely under our own control? Who would surrender his conscious power and freedom, and sacrifice the infinite possibilities of good which lie before him, to escape the possibility of failure and suffering and defeat? Will any rational man exchange his position for that of the ant or the beaver? "What," exclaims Rousseau, "to render man incapable of evil, would we have him lowered to mere brute instinct? No! God of my soul, I will not reproach Thee for having made me in thine image, so that I might be good and free and happy like Thyself." The ceaseless dependence of man on the conserving efficiency of God imposes upon him the obligation to determine himself, and to regulate his action in conformity with the will of God. Here, then, we have found a still deeper ground for moral government. 3. _The relation of God to man is a relation of paternity; the relation of man to God is a relation of childship._ "We are his offspring;" and as the offspring of God we must have a kindred nature, and, in some sense, "resemble God."