“For reasons we can only guess at, it is said that God decides before we are born which of us are to be saved and which consigned to eternal damnation; and not just before we were born, but before anyone was born. Before He started work on the universe, before He had even laid the first brick, it had been ordained who would be lost and who would be saved; and which of us would serve our time in Aberystwyth. Nothing we do on this earth makes a blind bit of difference. God pulls the arm, the wheels spin, we are damned or saved. All you can do is hope He gives better odds than the publican.”