^ It is not the mere existence of evil, but the amount of evil in the world that really depresses us and seems like a load too heavy to be lifted up. And if we could realize to ourselves that the purposes of God are known to us in part only, not merely as regards another life, but also as regards this ; if we could imagine that the evil and disorder which we see around us are but a step or stage in the progress towards order and perfection, then our con- ception of evil would be greatly changed. Slowly, and by many steps, did the earth which we inhabit attain to the fulness of life which we see around us. I might go on to speak of this world as a pebble in the ocean of space, as no more in relation to the universe than the least things are to the greatest, or to the whole earth. But, that we may not become dizzy in thinking about this, I will ask you to consider the bearing of such reflections, which are simple matters of fact, on our present subject. They tend to show us how small a part, not only of the physical but also of the moral world, is really known to us. They suggest to us that the evil and suffering which we see around us may be only the beginning of another and higher state of being, to be realized during countless ages in the history of man. That progress of which we think so much, from barbarism to civilization, or from ancient to modern times, may be as nothing compared with that which God has destined for the human race. And if we were living in those happier times, we should no more think seriously
JOB xiii. 15 47
of the misery through which many have attained to that higher state of being than we should think of some bad dream, or dwell on some aberration or perversity of childhood when the character had been formed and had grown up to the stature of the perfect man.i
I questioned: Why is evil on the Earth?
A sage for answer struck a chord, and lo ! I found the harmony of little worth
To teach my soul the truth it longed to know.
He struck again; a saddened music, rife
With wisdom, in my ear an answer poured:
Sin is the jarring semitone of life, — ^
The needed minor in a perfect chord.^
(2) But the test can be closer ; other calamities come pouring in upon Job with true epic swiftness. His family is swept out of existence. To the Jew this meant more than to us — not more grievous, but as taking away the hope of the Messiah. Under this hope the family had become a Divine institution, and so an intenser, if not a dearer, relation ; it embraced his whole world ; he had no thought, or life, or hope outside of it. When our children die we quench our tears with the hope of meeting them again; but to the Jew it was the overthrow of his life, the blotting out of his world. Job also endured this test, evolving in his communings with himself a full belief in another world, where, if he should find personal vindication, he might also find what was dearer to him.
^ Forty- three years ago, four men were left to starve on a southern isle, whither they had gone in the hope of preaching the Gospel to some of the lowest savages which the earth contains. Three of them slowly died of hunger ; the fourth, Captain Allan Gardiner, survived them in a prolongation of agony. When the winter was over a ship touched on that bleak shore, and his remains were found near the entrance of the cave which had given rude shelter. Can you imagine a lot more lonely or horrible? Here was a noble and holy man, filled with the burning and the sole desire to make known the love of Jesus Christ to the miserable Fuegians, and God allowed him to starve to death in lonely anguish on a desert isle. And did his faith fail in that extremity of horror ? Not for one moment. At the ^ B. Jowett, Sermons on Faith and Doctrine, 44. ^ Francis Howard Williams.
48 TRUST INEXTINGUISHABLE
entrance of the cave, in red paint, he had painted a rude hand pointing downward, and under it the words, " My soul, trust thou still upon God." The diary containing his last words, as for weeks he slowly starved to death, is written with the sunshine of joy and peace in God. " Asleep or awake," said one of his starving companions, " I am happy beyond the poor compass of language to tell." The very last words which Allan Gardiner wrote in his diary were these : " I know not how to thank my gracious God for His marvellous loving kindness." Many a man, many a king, many a prince, many a millionaire, might give all that they had ever done and all they had ever possessed to die a death like that. And did these saintly heroes die in vain ? No ! Their very deaths brought about that Patagonian mission on which their labours had been spent.^