Did the designer intend that parasites should infest the human body? The creator made the parasites (lice) and their proper dwelling-place seems to be the human body. The human body gives them their proper food. They are so constituted as to reproduce themselves rapidly and thus persist in feeding upon man.
The question is immediately raised: "Were the lice made for man, or man for the lice?" When did it ever occur to a sane mind that bed-bugs and mosquitoes and fleas were created with a benevolent design?
These facts are irreconcileable with the notion of a supreme and beneficent Providence.
Where is the evidence of benevolent design in earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, drouth, famine, and ten thousand ills which flesh is heir to? Where is the moral purpose? Where is the benevolence in peopling the earth with millions of human beings who live lives of poverty and misery?
But it is argued that we cannot see it all now, but by and by it will be made plain to us, that is, when we get into the other world. This is begging the question. The Christian says creation shows a creator, who first created the universe and now presides over it. But when we bring the facts of this world, its abounding evils and human miseries, to show the absence of any benevolent superintendence, he promises to make good his argument in the next world. This is asking a fellow to wait too long. Again, it is argued by the Christian that God ordained pain to work out good; but how comes it that this ordination of working good out of evil does not take place? Sometimes one man is made better by it, and another is brutalized by it. How does this come to pass if pain was ordained to work good? Has the plan of the designer failed? "The evils of this world are ordained for the purpose of developing our souls; only by pain and suffering can we be prepared for heaven." Little children who die, according to this dogma, can never be developed.
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father? (Mat. 10 : 29.)
But sparrows do fall to the ground nevertheless. And if some do not fall to the ground that wicked bird the sparrow-hawk, devours them sometimes before they have an opportunity to fall. It is the same wise and kind Providence who makes the sparrow and the sparrow-hawk, but perhaps the poor sparrow does not recognize the wisdom and mercy of having a destroyer. But our good Christian friends will have it that all things come to pass by the direct control of an all-wise and all-good Providence. The Chicago fire, the Boston fire, and others are all dispensations of Providence, if we may believe the ministers, and they are the only ones who pretend to have positive information of the facts. The bursting of a mill-dam, or a tidal-wave, or anything and everything else that carries the besom of destruction to thousands is to them a well-known intervention of the hand of a wise and merciful Providence. It is the same, with good fortune; if we as a people have great prosperity, large harvests and abundance of trade, it is because of this "All-wise Providence." He brings the evil and the good, miseries and joys, sins and salvation.