His innumerable failures, His grievous sufferings.
It would be easy to love God if He were like that--yet who dares to say it
or to teach it? It is the dreadful doctrine of His Omnipotence that ruins
everything. I cannot hold any communication with Omnipotence--it is a
consuming fire; but if I could know that God was strong and patient and
diligent, but not all-powerful or all-knowing, then I could commune with
Him. If, when some evil mishap overtakes me, I could say to Him, 'Come,
help me, console me, show me how to mend this, give me all the comfort you
can,' then I could turn to Him in love and trust, so long as I could feel
that He did not wish the disaster to happen to me but could not ward it
off, and was as miserable as myself that it had happened. Not _so_
miserable, of course, because He has waited so long, suffered so much, and
can discern so bright and distant a hope. Then, too, I might feel that
death was perhaps our escape from many kinds of evil, and that I should be
clasped to His heart for awhile, even though He sent me out again to fight
His battles. That would evoke all my love and energy and courage, because I
could feel that I could give Him my help; but if He is Almighty, and could
have avoided all the sorrow and pain, then I am simply bewildered and
frightened, because I can predicate nothing about Him."

"Is not that the idea which Christianity aims at?" I said.

"Yes," he said; "the suffering Saviour, who can resist evil and amend it,
but cannot instantly subdue it; but, even so, it seems to set up two Gods
for one. The mind cannot really _identify_ the Saviour with the
Almighty Designer of the Universe. But the thought of the Saviour
_does_ interpret the sense of God's failure and suffering, does bring
it all nearer to the heart. But if there is Omnipotence behind, it all
falls to the ground again--at least it does for me. I cannot pray to
Omnipotence and Omniscience, because it is useless to do so. The limited
and the unlimited cannot join hands. I must, if I am to believe in God,
believe in Him as a warrior arriving on a scene of disorder, and trying to
make all well. He must not have permitted the disorder to grow up, and then
try to subdue it. It must be there first. It is a battle obviously--but it
must be a real battle against a real foe, not a sham fight between hosts
created by God. In that case, 'to think of oneself as an instrument of
God's designs is a privilege one shares with the dev