PAIN AND PROGRESS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17171, 15 October 1923, Page 8

PAIN AND PROGRESS.

REFLECTIONS ON JAPANESE CATACLYSM. PRICE MUST BE PAID. (By the REV T. K. Hl TFI, in the Sydney ‘‘Sun.”) We are having a series of baptisms of blood. Calamity follows on the heels of calamity. Catastrophe succeeds catastrophe. The sense of security is momentarily shattered. The son l is shocked by a dreadful succession of dire disaster. Now sensational shipwrecks rob the country of some of its stalwart sons. And then mine explosions plunge the community into mourning for men who perish in the prime of life. The eruption of Ktna has scarcely ceased its death-dealing devastation when the news comes of a catastrophe so colossal that it staggers the imagination Japanese cities are laid waste, millions are homeless, and the lives of scores of thousands of people are claimed by tidal wave and earthquake. And after the earthquake a lire. . . And after the lire a still small voice . . . In the first sound of the blow we forget what catastrophe has taught the race: forget that the path of pain has always been the path of progress ; we forget that through suffering we souls. Through calamity we have calculated many of the cosmic forces, we have set limits to Nature’s destructive power, and. though once again we find ourselves beating against ancient elemental mysteries, which work havoc in human life, and cause the black wings of sorrow to overspread the world, we should call to mind wlihfc we have won. ARRAIGNING THE ALMIGHTY. At the moment of misery we forget the ministry of the long look, and we are inclined to arraign the Almighty at the bar of a somewhat hysterical judgment. “ Can you expect me to believe in God after that?” “ And this is God s world, is it?” “ And God ts Almighty and AII-merciful, too?” “ All’s law and all’s love, did you say?” The questions are asked and shoulders are shrugged as though the dethronement of God and the denial of His love in some way helped to solve the mystery! In the presence and agony of a many-sided and malignant mystery men imagine they .see on a wide scale the refutation of the fatherly character of God. Some cry with Crockett’s ‘‘Cleg Kelly,” “It’s all a dumb lie, God’s dead,” or say with the blind and bitter cynicism of one of Thomas Hardy’s characters, “The world’s a blighted apple, Tess,” and men are but “ the sport of the immortals.”

Nature shatters cities to pieces without the slightest semblance of pity. God remains silent. No angel sweeps from the sky to rescue men. Fire springs out of the earth to consume them. IS GOD RESPONSIBLE? Tt is said that a wave of Atheism succeeds every such calamity. But is such Atheism sane? Is it reasonable? Do not these catastrophies occur unaer laws by which alone the world is made habitable? Dr James Martineau says: “ The same laws that are death-deal-ing for an hour, or a day, are lifegiving for ever.” Volcanoes, after all. are earth’s safety valves. And at least ib is fair to ask if men do not dwell among the eternal burnings under the shadow of the volcano at their own risk and upon their own responsibility? And men know when they dwell in the earthquake zone that earthquakes are likely happenings- When certain conditions are not observed, or if they remain unknown when they are knowable. is it just to charge God with responsibility that belongs to men? Is it rational to judge the vast ages of existence bv the occasional catastrophe? To say that “Nature is red in tooth and claw ” is not the whole story—it is but a small part of the storv. There is so much more good in the world than evil that, as Josh Billings says. “Sin is news and news is sin.” Pain is not wanton, but purposeful, making for the larger safety, ensuring the preservation of the race and the permanent progress of the people of the earth. Js that too great a claim to make? AN IMPIOUS SUGGESTION. To say that the earthquake is inconsistent with the eternal goodness is equivalent to saying that God ought not to have set a;jy liumans on the earth until the last ’quake was over. To regard volcanic eruption, tidal wave, and earthquake as punitive judgment, as Divine visitation, as acts of Gcfcl. to suggest that Japan has been punished for the materialism of the world, seems to he utterly impious, a violation of every real religious principle, a reflection not only on the wisdom of God and the revelation of Christ, but also on the sanity of man and the entire rationale of the uni'°God is not- like that at all. He is so different iudeed that He attends the funeral of every sparrow. He counts the hairs of your head. A man to Him is as the apple of His eve. God suffers with the race. That siirelv is the significance of the Cross. I am aware that more than tins must be said. H must, for instance, he admitted that God is responsible for the system in which catastrophe is possible and inevitable. Presently we will trv to face that problem and consider what you would do if you were God. THE WAY EVERLASTING. Meanwhile let us reflect that calamity and catastrophe deliver, us from provincial thoughts of God and ourselves? We see only one side of the catastrophe, not the completed transaction, not the infinite series of a I ter-results. We rebel against the wholesale character of Nature’s murders, the killing by earthquake and lire of vast numbers of people at one time. But she will as certainlv kill the whole tifteeen hundred million of us in a few rears. We shall all die. thank God! But isn't there something that survives the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds? Man is here for the conquest of Nature. And he is going to conquer, lie i« measuring himself against the great impersonal forces of the universe,and he is destined to have dominion. But the world is not easilv won. And it would, not be won at all if God peril! danger. The juice has always to he paid. Every step of advance is marked by blood. The way of the Cross is the way everlasting. This catastrophe which strikes a sense of awe into the lives of men and lashes our self-complacency into something approaching cosmic reverence prevents us from becoming selfcontained and insufferable' prigs. It is a costly incident in progress. But life will issue in triumph. That is as certain as God