from the shore, the effects of
earthquake and tidal wave would not have been one hundredth part as
terrible; yet Messina is being re-built on its former site, and
apparently in the old style of architecture--a proceeding which simply
invites a repetition of the same kind of disaster. It is literally
true that these greater calamities are in nearly every instance capable
of being averted or their incidence minimised; to give an obvious
instance, one is almost weary of seeing it repeated that the famines
and consequent epidemics which visit India could be immensely reduced
by a wise and generous expenditure on irrigation, the improved
cultivation of the land, the enlargement of the cultivable area, and so
forth. But men find it easier to turn accusing glances to the sky than
to bestir themselves and to use more wisdom, foresight and energy in
directing and subduing the forces of nature.

We are well aware that what has been written in the pages of this
chapter is no {118} more than a series of scattered hints; we do not
for a moment imagine that, in the aggregate, they amount to more than a
most fragmentary resolution of the difficulty presented by the reality
of evil--indeed, we have already expressed our belief that a full
solution must in the nature of things lie beyond our ken. But if it
should appear from the foregoing considerations that some aspects of
our problem--such as the existence of sin and of pain--are not as
irreconcilable with the goodness of God as may have seemed to be the
case, reflection should lead us to the reasonable hope that if we
understood more, we should receive fuller and fuller proof of the truth
that God is Love. And when we remember that that Love shines out most
brightly from the Cross, and that the world's greatest tragedy has been
the world's greatest blessing, the turning-point in the history of the
race, we may well hush our impatience, refrain over-confident
criticisms, and commit ourselves to the Father's hands even while we
can only see His purposes as in a glass, darkly. We may believe, with
the psalmist of old, that by and by we "shall behold His face in
_righteousness_; we shall be satisfied, when we awake, with His
likeness."

[1] R. A. Armstrong, _God and the Soul_, pp. 161-162.

[2] _Op. cit._, p. 21.

[3] _Ibid_, p. 82.

[4] _Through Nature to God_, pp. 36, 37.

{119}

CHAPTER VIII

THE DENIAL OF EVIL

We closed our last chapter with a confession