MYSTERY OF PAIN

Hokitika Guardian, 27 February 1933, Page 3

MYSTERY OF PAIN

NOT GOD’S JUDGMENT

LONDON, January 10.

“Think of the millions of people who cannot get work, ecndemned to enduring idleness and the forced humiliation of pauperism. How- many must he asking, themselves, ‘What doe,* it all mean, if there i,* a God in Heaven.?’ I cannot answer, 1 do not know,” said Dean. Inge, preaching at St. Marys Church, Kilburn, on pain and suffering.

‘■On this subject,” he said, “we must be careful to avoid cant. Human suffering, yes, and animal suffering, too, is a great mystery. We are told sometimes that pain has a useful function. That is true but why does pain so often exceed in an immense degree the amount which is necessary to secure its usefulness?

“On the other side, some of the worst diseases are not painful at first. If they were they could he cured more often, and when, a disease has become incurable and the pain goes on getting more violent, how- can we speak of the usefulness of pain?

“Again, we are told that pain punishes wrong doing. In some cases, no doubt, it does, but with such random cruelty that I am sure we have no right to speak of it as the judgment of God upon sin.

“It is most difficult to understand troubles which seem to serve no good purpose. Get it well into your minds that Christianity is not what in the universities i.s called a- pass examination, which it is easy to scrape through, hut what they call an honours course—a stiff test of self-denial, self-devotion, and love.”