MYSTERY OF PAIN.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20788, 23 February 1933, Page 15

MYSTERY OF PAIN.

♦— —■ NOT GOD'S JUDGMENT. Cthok ow own ' cassis*oxßxirr.) LONDON, January 10. "Think of the millions of people who cannot get work, condemned to endur ing idleness aud the forced humiliation of pauperism. How many must be asking themselves, 'What dpes it all mean, if there is a God in. Heaven?' I cannot answer, I do not kaow," said Dean 'lnge, preaching at St. Mary's Church, Kilbiirn, on pain and suffering. . •'On this subject,'-' he said, "we miist be careful to avoid cant. Human suffering, yes, and animal suffering, too, is a great mystery. We are told sometimes that pain has a useful function. That .is true; but why does pain so often exceed in an immense degree the amount which is necessary to secure its usefulness? "On the other aide, some of the worst diseases are not painful at first. If they were they could be cured more often, and when a disease has become incurable and the pain goes on getting-more violent, how can we speak of tae usefulness of pain? "Again, we axe told that psin punishes wrongdoing. In some cases, no doubt, it does, but with such random cruelty that 1 am sure we have no right to speak of it as the judgment of God upon sin. / "It is most difficult to understand troubles which seem to serve no good purpose. Get it well into your minds that Christianity is not' what in the universities is called a pass examination. which it is easy to scrape through, but what they call an honours course—a. stiff test of self-denial, selfdovotion, and love."