1 Edwin Hatch.
ROMANS VIII. i8 9
But if it conveys the notion that the pain predominates over pleasure, that is utterly false — that is a libel on God's creation, whose " tender mercies are over all his works." The generalization of Herbert Spencer is at once far truer and far more extended, and his conclusion is that the supreme law under which every creature is placed is what amounts to a law of love. Pleasures, he says, attend a creature, an organism, when it does what is good for it, what will promote its growth, develop its organization, increase the sum total of its happiness ; and pains attend it -when it is moving along hurtful lines, when it is spending its energy too quickly, when it is diminishing the sum of its enjoyment, which pains are only the precursors of greater pains if it will persist in going along that hurtful path. Thus all pains are only like little pricks which push off and deter a creature from harm, whilst all pleasures are like gentle incentives and loving encouragements for it to persevere in the way that will bring it the largest measure of delight.
Ye know not why God hath joined the horse-fly unto the
horse, Nor why the generous steed is yoked with the poisonous fly: Lest the steed should sink into ease and lose his fervour of
nerve God hath appointed him this : a lustful and venomous bride.
Never supine lie they, the steeds of our folk, to the sting, Praying for deadness of nerve, their wounds the shame of the
sun; They strive, but they strive for this: the fulness of passionate
nerve ; They pant, but they pant for this: the speed that outstrips
the pain.
Sons of the dust, ye have stung: there is darkness upon my
soul. Sons of the dust, ye have stung: yea, stung to the roots of
my heart. But I have said in my breast : the birth succeeds to the pancr, And sons of the dust, behold, your malice becomes my song.^
4. The great point to notice is that there are other facts in life which must be taken into account as well as sorrow. Pro-
* Padruic Colum, Arab Songs.
lo ANOTHER GOOD RECKONING
fessor Huxley spoke of the "Passionless Impersonality" which was all that he could find in nature. Had he never seen a mother ? Is motherhood passionless ? Motherhood is as much a part of the universe and a creation of its Creator as pain. That is what we have to recognize — this world is a problem, a mystery, not a simplicity. It is not that life is full of suffering and suffering only, and that this is the worst of all possible worlds. There would be no problem then — that would be simple enough. The mystery is that there is both justice and injustice, both pain and joy, both agony and love. There is the storm that hurries with fire and ruin over sea and land, and the pessimist says, " God is cruel." But there are flowers by the wayside to contradict him. We have to account for the whole of the facts. How can we reconcile them ? What shall we say ? Shall we say that God is working out a glory in comparison with which the sorrows of this present are not worthy to be compared ? Or shall we say that He is an " Infinite Indifference " who lighted by chance on the sweetness of human friendship and the rich cornfields and the splendours of the day and the night ? Surely love is the easier solution, for these things are too great to be the creation of chance.
^ God loves and cares for the meanest creatures more tenderly, more gently, than the sweetest mother ever cared for her firstborn son. His arrangements for the happiness of everything that He has made are so large, so delicate, so considerate, so thoughtful, in a word so fatherly, that anything we know of earthly care and tenderness is only hard and unfeeling by its side. His love for the lowest zoophyte has led Him to do far more to promote its happiness than we have ever thought of doing for the one we love best.^
^ A pessimistic novel of our day closes with the sentence, " The President of the Immortals had finished his sport with Tess." But if the creed of the novel be true, we do not know that the sport is finished. If God has tortured us here, in all Hkeli- hood He will torture us hereafter. This may be the first of an endless series of torture chambers of increasing agony and woe. And the awful possibilities of disaster that loom before the imagination are horrible beyond description. But, as a matter of fact, we are not afraid. Why ? Because we know that the joy of life is greater than the pain. Why not be honest ? There is
^ W. D. Ground.
ROMANS VIII. i8 II
nothing here that makes impossible the faith that God is love — no sorrow that is too bitter for atoning.^
ii. The Reason for Pain.
1. There are two great reasons for the presence of suffering in the world and in human lives.
(1) At the root of this mystery of suffering lies the mystery of sacrifice. St. Paul lays down for us its principles : " I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." Notice that word "therefore" — as a consequence of all that has gone before, the deep, and almost abstruse, argument about the relationship of God to man. Here is its result. God's love, God's power of sanctification, God's redemption of man, issues in a living sacrifice of man to God ; a giving up, a crucifying, of self and many cherished plans and hopes.