HERALDS OF GOD
that will enable them to "stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand": in short, not an explanation, but a victory.
Right down in the heart of this situation you are to set the Cross. You may, indeed, lead up to the great light that breaks from Calvary by calling attention to certain gleams that pierce the darkness of the way. For example, you will surely be constrained to show that much of what men suffer is but the other side, the necessary correlative, of the immense gain and privilege of living in a world where law and not caprice holds sway; that those who accept the assets of corporate membership in the human family must also be prepared to accept its liabilities; that any system which guaranteed preferential treatment to the righteous and immunity from trouble to the unoffending would in point of fact corrupt the very ethic that it seemed to stablish and support; that in any case man demands danger, and thrives on hazard, and wants no lotus-land of ghastly ease; above all, that it is possible to use trouble creatively, transmuting pain into power and sorrow into love, so that in the end such trouble positively adds on to life's total experience, instead of negatively subtracting from it. All this may rightly enter into the message by which you seek to reinforce faith and to rally the courage in the depths of sorely burdened hearts. Nor will you lack vivid illustration of the thrilling truth that the worst sufferings may be the raw material of character and Christlike loveliness of soul.
76
