uence of sin, but it is not a
vindictive punishment; it is that we may learn our mistake. But we must
give up the revengeful idea of God: that is imported into our scale of
values by the grossest anthropomorphism. Only the weak man, who fears
that his safety will be menaced if he does not make an example, deals
in revenge. He is indignant at anything which mortifies his vanity,
which implies any doubt of his power or any disregard of his wishes.
Revenge is born of terror, and to think of God as vindictive is to
think of Him as subject to fear. Serene and unquestioned strength can
have nothing to do with fear. Milton is largely responsible for
perpetuating this belief. He makes the Almighty say to the Son--

"Let us advise, and to this hazard draw
With speed what force is left, and all employ
In our defence, lest unawares we lose
This our high place, our sanctuary, our hill."

Milton's idea of the Almighty was frankly that of a Power who had
undertaken more than he could manage, and who had allowed things to go
too far. But it is a puerile conception of God; and to allow ourselves
to think or speak of God as a Power that has to take precautions, or
that has anything to fear from the exercise of human volition, is to
cloud the whole horizon at once.

But we ought rather to think of God as a Power which for some reason
works through imperfection. The battle of the world is that of force
against inertness: and our fears are the shadow of that combat.

Fear should then rather show us that we are being confronted with
experience; and that our duty is to disregard it, to march forward
through it, to come out on the other side of it. It is all an
adventure, in fact! The disaster in which we are involved is not sent
to show us that the Eternal Power which created us is vexed at our
failures, or bent on crushing us. It is exactly the opposite; it is to
show us that we are worth testing, worth developing, and that we are to
have the glory of going on; the very fear of death is the last test of
our belief in Love. We are assuredly meant to believe that the coward
is to learn the beauty of courage, that the laggard is to perceive the
worth of energy, that the selfish man is to be taught sympathy. If we
must take a metaphor, let us rather think of God as the graver of the
gem than as the child that beats her doll for collapsing instead of
sitting upright.

It is our dishonouring thought of God as jealous, suspiciou