would never have been the deep source of comfort and of inspira- tion which they have proved to thousands. The very knowledge that one who worked out the voyage of his life so truly and so firmly could so suffer and so declare his suffering, is calculated to console and strengthen many who endure partially his pain and loneliness, but who have not, as yet, resisted so victoriously ; whose temperament is morbid, but who have not, as yet, subdued it to the loving and healthy cheerfulness of his Christian action.^
(2) We have to suffer in body, through sickness or accident. This frame of earth in which we tabernacle during our sojourn in this world, how frail it is ! how full of weakness and of pain ! And yet, even here, in the majority of cases, we can trace our pain or sickness to our own fault, to the breaking of some law of health, very likely to our luxury of life, or our gluttony, or love of ease, or the pursuit of pleasure.
^ It may be pointed out with irresistible force that suffering can be traced, often at a long interval, in some cases to sin, and that it is simply one of the wholesome sanctions of law. We are firmly convinced that we live in a moral universe, and by that we mean in a state where it will be made pleasant to do what is right, and very unpleasant to do what is wrong, at least in physical affairs. If one play the fool and slap Nature in the face, that power will take up the quarrel and pursue it to the end with the man and his descendants till she has obtained complete satisfac- tion. If one make a covenant with Nature and keep her laws loyally, this power will remember him for good, and his children after him, opening her hand and blessing them with health and strength. With her saving judgments and her abundant mercies. Nature fences up the way of life that we may be induced to walk therein with steadfast step. And if any one break through the hedge, it is good that he suffer; and if it be that its actual transgressor do not pay all the debt, but that the innocent must share his liability, this is only the inevitable consequence of the solidarity of the family and the race. None can interfere between the sinner and his penalty, and we can even see that it is well none should, for in so far as one accepts his chastisement with a right mind the pain leaves peace behind.^
(3) And then, lastly, there is the suffering of the human soul ; the suffering in our affections — the keenest, the deepest, the hardest of all to bear ! And again we see that this comes so often
^ S. A. Brooke, Life and Letters of F. W. Robertson, 473. 2 J. Watson, The Potter's Wheel, 140. JAS.-JUDE — 7
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9§ A PROPITIATION AND A PATTERN
through our own sin; so often we have to suffer in our affec- tions, because our affections have been set on that which is not lawfully within our reach, that which has been forbidden to us by the law of God.
But, whether it be from our own fault, or from those many, many heart-wrenchings which come through love, even in right affections, in right relationships — the sorrows, the pains of husband or wife at the suffering or perhaps sin of the other ; the pains (what greater ?) of the mother weeping over her erring, wayward, sinful child — all these sufferings of the human soul we find in their fulness throughout our Lord's life, and reaching their culminating point upon the Cross. For throughout His life He suffered, " being grieved at the hardness of men's hearts." He suffered in seeing those for whom He had come to die refuse His proffered grace and turn away from His words of love.
^ It goes without proving that no one has ever so affected our race for weal as our Master, and that the spring of this salvation is in Himself. Partly it is His example of holy living, and partly it is His Gospel of Divine Truth, but a white marble Christ had not touched the human heart, or loosed the bands of sin. It is the Crucified, in the unutterable pathos of His Passion and Death, who has overcome and gotten unto Himself the victory. Because it appears that God also is in the tragedy of life, and in the heart of its mystery. When one enters the dimness of a foreign cathedral, he sees nothing clearly for a while, save that there is a light from the Eastern window, and it is shining over a figure raised high above the choir. As one's eyes grow accustomed to the gloom, he identifies the Crucifix, repeated in every side chapel, and marks that to this Sufferer all kneel in their trouble, and are comforted. Prom age to age the shadow hangs heavy on life and men walk softly in the holy place, but ever the Crucifix faces them, and they are drawn to His feet and goodness by the invitation of the pierced hands.
Had one lived in Jesus' day and realized His excellence, the Cross would have been an almost insuperable offence to faith. Why should He have had a crown of thorns ? Had the veil been lifted from the future, and had one seen the salvation flowing from the five wounds of the Redeemer, then he had been comforted and content. No one then imagined that through the mystery of the Lord's Passion so great a blessing was to come on all ages, for none had entered into the secret of suffering. To-day we are perplexed by the Passion, which is not now concentrated like a