Los Angeles herald., 1910-01-30
Sorrow Not Necessary TO Bring
the Realization of Divine Peace

1.-THE riddle of the. painful earth, as
Tennyson expresses it, has been pom
dered long and vainly by hearts most
faithful to God. To see the sorrow of
the world as of Loves creating on the
one hand, or to affirm its existence in
spite of the divine will on the other
hand; which dishonors God least? has
been the question. The Christian has
oftenest chosen to believe that God al
lows the evil for some good purpose,
a child The Would-be philosophic
thought has gone further and said that
even God cannot teach man joy except
by contrast with sorrow; that finite
sense cannot rightly estimate pleasure
unless it has known pain.
The experience of the most earnest
seekers for light has seemed to be that
sorrow is a refining and purifying in
fluence, that mans extremity is God
opportunity" Many a man or woman
dates the uprising to seek the kingdom
of God from the hour when all earthly
hope was shattered. While human life
is full of satisfactions, it is rarely that
we turn from material pleasures and
pursuits to spiritual things. And yet
there is food for thought in the equally
evident fact that sorrow or loss has
not always had this effect. People are
sometimes embittered or imbruted by
their troubles. just as the means of
discipline applied by parents to child
life has not always had the expected
results. Thus we see that there can
be no general rule laid down to the
effect that suffering is a means of
grace or in itself a benefit either to
child or to manhood.
Contrast of opposites
The second explanation of the pains
of mortal experience just noted was
that pain is needed to define pleasure;
that no conscious experience could eX-
ist without the contrast of opposites,
as shadow is needed to outline form in
painting But if opposites teach US the
true nature of each then the conscious
ness most full of darkness should be the
one most capable of understanding
light the heart that knows hate best
should be made acquainted with love.
These last statements are seen to be
untenable. They are as absurd as to
say that one would go to the north
pole to study tropical conditions. Ger
tainly no one would teach a child dis
cord in order to train his ear to more
delicate perceptions of harmony. The
child who is to be trained musically
is kept away from instruments that
are out of tune and he is allowed to
hear only the best music in order that
his taste may not become Vitiated
But the clearest refutation of the
notion that opposites are necessary to
each other is seen in contemplating
love. Christian Scientists find to their
daily joy that as they grow into
deeper knowledge of love they know
less and less of hate; and they can al
ready foresee the time when the heart
of the real Christian will be so irradi-
ated with love that hate cannot enter,
even as darkness cannot penetrate a
room filled with light.
Why cannot darkness, here used as
the symbol of sorrow and pain, pene-
trate a room full of light? Light pene-
trates the dark, but the reverse thing
does not happen When light comes
into a room, moreover. does it drive
out anything? No, for darkness is
1t has no function or place.
1t is nothing but the absence of light.
The Explanation
Here we arrive at the whole eX
planation both of the good or i'll that
sorrow and trouble seem TO do and of
the entire nullity of trouble in the
divine plan 1t is like darkness; and
if for every sense of sorrow or pain |
in human experience we substitute the |
word darkness in considering them, we
solve the question. The darkness is
absolutely of no use in itself; 1t IS
nothing. When we find ourselves in
darkness we naturally turn toward the
light. There it is the knowledge of
light that saves us; it is nothing that
we learn of darkness.
Revelation says of the redeemed,
'grhese are they which came out OIL
great tribulatlon, and have washed |
their robes and made them white in |
the blood of the Lamb" 1t was not |
the tribulation that washed them clean; |
they must come out of that-learn its |
nothingness. They do this by rising |
above that sense of life in matter
which alone suffers. When this is ac-
compished then the cleansing process