Necessary Evil

Why doesn’t God nip all evil in the bud, so as to eradicate suffering?

Our business is to learn that death is sin’s most necessary recompense;

and so to choose what’s right, not wrong, without a hint of diffidence.

This we can only do if every choice has its sure consequence.

There must be moral hazard, founded on unswerving law;

or else between wisdom and folly there would be no difference,

there would be no divide between what’s reckless and prudence.

If on jumping from a precipice I did not fall to stony floor,

always being rescued by an angel’s hand; presumption hyperbolic

(that’s filled with risk and self-despond) would be remade as merry frolic!

– which would, after not long, become most tedious, and nothing more.