A great many people today are troubled beyond expression by the distress and grief that are being occasioned by man's inhumanity io man. That a soldier should die in battle is taken as a natural occurrence but that women and children should be slaughtered is savage and unnatural Unconsciously the mind questions, why aN this suffering? Now, when we turn to the New Testament we find no theory of sorrow, or abstract discussion of the problem of pain and affliction; but we do find a solution offered. It doesn't answer all our queries but it does give grounds for hope that suffering is mot the result of blind fate. The solution is an experimental one, and centres round the life of Christ If it be asked why sorrow comes, ihe answer is not speculative, but practical, philosophers would say pragmatical; we are simply pointed to Christ's experience, who "for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame".
The sorrows of Jesus were not due to physical pain, nor to privations of life, nor to bodily needs: His sufferings were a spiritual sorrow connected with His contact and conflict with evil. He sighs at the presence of the deaf and dumb man. When face to face with death, He is moved with sympathetic compassion; He Eroans in spirit, is troubled and weeps. The underlying thought in these and other instances seems to be His sense of what lies behind human suffering—dullness, unbelief, hardness of heart, wilful blindness, unkindness, hatred. To Jesus and indeed to every creature made in the image of God, sorrow-—a sense of discord, a consciousness that things are not as they should be, in ourselves, or in the world—would appear to be a necessary condition of the struggle against evil in an imperfect world. Given the Taci of evil, suffering is a necessity, it ceases to be a problem. It is incidental to man as a spiritual being. Only in a perfect state could it be desirable that sorrow and sighing should flee away. Viewed in this light we may begin to see something of the purpose of sorrow.
The second Beatitude—'Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted'—speaks of {he happiness of sorrow! The underlying thought seems to be that dissatisfaction with things as they are will lead to the effort to right them. Discord within the soul, ie. evil, is specially in view. Mourning is the evidence of -up of the self.complacency which is the chief obstacle to the Kingdom of God. Sorrow is of no value unless it leads to striving after higher things. The bearing of pain, volun-{ary or otherwise, is in itself neutral; it is effective only when it is the means of rooting out from the self a cause of offence. The sorrow which is fruitful 15 the travail which issues in the birth of a new life. The one object of. purging the vine is that the branch may bring forth more fruit.
If sorrow is a necessary accompaniment of the attempt to right things in oneself, it will also accompany the attempt to right things in the world. It was Christs experience, and it Will be the experience of those who follow Him and share His work. There is a traditional saying of Christ's, "he who is near me is near the fire" This is indubitably authentic in spirit. The disciples must bear the cross He bears, drink His cup, be baptized with His baptism and carry His yoke. The sword must pierce the Virgin's heart because of her nearness to Him; even the Innocents suffer unconsciously on ae. count of their connection with Him. The via dolorosa is the only road in the struggle against evil in an imperfect world.
In A Book of Remembrances John Stuart Holder wrote that some years ago he was standing on the Leas at Folkstone, on the brightest and most sunny of days, and looking across the Channel, he endeavoured to see something definite in the very dim outline of the coast of france. He was just aware that there was land over there, but that was all "The following day was cold and damp and raw. The air was surcharged with moisture and he walked on the Leas again, and he saw France as plainly as though it had been only five hundred yards away. It was when the air was heavy, when he storm was ready to break, that ihe land Which was far off became clear and distinct to led vision. And so itis in the tests and sorrows of life to every one of us. We may see "the Lord" through a mist of tears, as we could never see Him in a blaze of sunshine.
1 we will allow the suffering caused by this cruel war to dispel our selfishness and purge away personal and national dross the chasten. ing, though caused by evil, will have proved purposive.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.