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Rh a mere automaton. Suppose that a man had God visibly before or above him, and beheld the stream of life issuing from the great Fountain, and distinctly perceived and felt himself to be, what he really is, a mere recipient of everything, thought, feeling, life itself,—what would he do? He would stand still, with his bands hanging down, like an image, waiting to see what wire would be pulled next,—what thought or feeling or act would next be given him. In fact, he would not be a man, but a mere machine. A universe of such beings would be but a universe of statues, and therefore they would be objects quite unworthy of God's love or regard. But by the simple yet wonderful contrivance of causing the appearance to man that he lives of himself, thus hiding as it were the machinery from his view, lo! from a statue he becomes a man; acting, thinking, feeling, as if entirely of and from himself,—looking to the right or left, up or down, receiving impressions, forming conclusions, following those conclusions, and so by degrees bringing himself into a habit of mind, and thus at length forming a character, an individuality. By this process and in this way, we have men in God's creation—human beings, and not a world of mere machines; men, in different stages of knowledge and wisdom, in different degrees of goodness and love,—and some even abusing this liberty and forming false notions of themselves and of their relation to their Creator, and so falling into pride and self-love, and thus into evil. Still, God saw that it was better that there should be some human beings, who, abusing their liberty, should pervert their natures, and derange the proper order of their being—in a word, should fall into evil—than that there should