them, it has linked together the Empire in the closest
bonds, allayed political and polemical strife, evoked a wealth of
heroism, self-sacrifice, prayer, and benevolence, and braced up the
moral fibre of countless lives.

Yet all this does not explain the existence of suffering, the why and
the wherefore still lie hidden in that region of the infinite which we,
finite beings, cannot penetrate. We can see, from its results, that
suffering is no more incompatible with the eternal love of God, than the
surgeon's knife is inconsistent with the tenderness of his heart. "Whom
the Lord loveth He chasteneth," "God dealeth with you as with sons"
(Heb. xii., 6, etc.). Our great mistake is to look upon trouble as
punishment, inflicted by an angry God, and to rebel under the chastening
hand. When God sees that His child, whether the nation or the
individual, needs discipline He sends it, and there is no more lack of
love than there is on the part of the wise earthly parent, when he
corrects his child and makes him suffer pain. Nay, it is the very love
that prompts the discipline.

Once more, let us look at suffering in its power of producing sympathy.

The Incarnation was the greatest act of sympathy the world has ever
known. The Word made flesh, our Saviour born as a babe, that He might
enter into all the experiences of our human nature; that He might not
simply feel _for_ us, but feel _with_ us.

Here is the essence of the word; take it in Latin, compassion; take it
in Greek, sympathy--alike it means feeling with. And in the wondrous
mystery of the Church, the spiritual body of Christ, the same great
principle is still working itself out.

Very strange, very mysterious, yet real with the essence of reality, is
the connection between the suffering Christ and the suffering Church,
"inasmuch as ye have ministered to one of the least of these My
brethren, ye have done it unto Me." And yet it is the Christ Who helps
and sustains us from on high. The same Christ Who was here upon earth,
suffering in His martyr Stephen was yet standing at the Father's right
hand to succour him.

The same Christ Who flashed the wondrous vision of Himself on the eyes
of S. Paul, was yet so intimately present in and with His infant Church
that he "thundered" forth the question, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest
thou Me?"

It is just this thought of Christ still present in the person of His
suffering children, that gives the glow of enthusiasm to philant