His presence with singing." Only as we attain to gladness are duty, work, suffering, and sacrifice accomplished at their best. Leonardo da Vinci painted, they say, holding a lyre in one hand; and everybody knows that he painted superbly. Holding a lyre in our hand, paths of duty bloom into paths of primroses: holding a lyre in our hand, whatever work is done by the other hand is a masterpiece; holding a lyre in our hand, the sacrifice is forgotten in the garlands; holding a lyre in our hand, the sponge dipped in vinegar changes to a honeycomb.

XXXI

A HUMAN DOCUMENT

Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.-LAM. iii. 39, 40.

T

HE natural man resents his afflictions.

He is

ever asking, Why do I suffer? Why do I suffer thus? He regards his sufferings as partaking of the nature of injustice; he considers himself the victim of misfortune, rather than the subject of correction. Enlightened men know better than this; they recognize an element of justice in their tribulation, and know within themselves how little reason they have to complain.

Whenever we are brought to the right point of view, we are in some sense penitents. We no longer argue as though we were innocent and meritorious, but underlying all our reasonings and conclusions is the consciousness of personal fault and demerit. The selfrighteous and self-satisfied are astonished when brought into deep waters; it is an experience entirely out of harmony with their complacent mood; but when under the stress of inward or outward trouble we "search and try our ways," we are not surprised by anything we suffer. And testing our life in the light of the holy

law we do not construe trial as though it were an unlucky accident, but we accept it as partaking of the nature of chastisement and retribution. In Oscar Wilde's pathetic prison book, which has recently excited much attention, we read: "The fact of my having been the common prisoner of a common jail I must frankly accept, and, curious as it may seem, one of the things I shall have to teach myself is not to be ashamed of it. I must accept it as a punishment, and if one is ashamed of having been punished one might just as well never have been punished at all. Of course, there are many things of which I was convicted that I had not done; but, then, there are many things of which I was convicted that I had done, and a still greater number of things in my life for which I was never indicted at all. I must say to myself that I ruined myself, and that nobody great or small can be ruined except by his own hand. I am quite ready to say so. This pitiless indictment I bring without pity against myself. Terrible as was what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible still." With similar reproaches are the afflicted souls of the awakened ever filled as they remind themselves of the sins of past years. And this sense of personal unworthiness checks all complaining; makes the penitent indeed thankful for bitter things which the carnal bemoan.

Not only do the enlightened detect in their sufferings the working of a general law of retribution, but they can often trace the connexion between their humiliations and sufferings and their specific personal sinfulness. "A man for the punishment of his sins." We may be fully assured that there is exquisite exact

ness and discrimination in the working of the law of retribution as in the action of all divine law; it does sometimes appear as though the law of retribution were peculiarly blind and sweeping, but truly the wheels which graze or grind are full of eyes, and exquisite justice regulates their every movement. The Harvard Astronomical Observatory at Cambridge, Massachusetts, recently secured the first successful photograph of a spectrum of lightning, the astronomer thus being able to analyze the fire of the tempest, and to determine what elements enter into its composition: subsequently several excellent photographs of lightning flashes were taken, and a later study of their spectra brought out the interesting fact that they were not exactly similar. We are morally certain that if, in some similar manner, it were possible to analyze the judgments of God, to enter into their causes, elements, and workings, we should find wise and delicate differentiations. As one lightning flash differs in character from another, so there is ever something personal and unique in the tribulations by which the Father of spirits disciplines His children.

The sensitive soul often discerns the subtle relation between its sin and punishment. Others may not at all understand the relation; they may not suspect it, but the godly know why their Father has taken them to task, and they see the personal significance of their trial. To none living may they, perhaps, speak of it; yet they can hardly be mistaken as they trace the obscure connexion between the faults of which they know themselves guilty, and what, to others, appear causeless and purposeless sorrows. In this respect

the heart knows its own bitterness. We make the greatest and most painful mistakes when we gratuitously undertake to give reasons for the afflictions of our neighbours, as Job's friends did; but to find the reason for our private sorrow in our personal sin is a humbling task for which we are often sorrowfully qualified.

The truly enlightened do not complain, because they apprehend sharply that their punishment is less than their desert. "Wherefore doth a living man complain?" The fact that we are alive is immediate and sufficient evidence of the divine forbearance. "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not." "But though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. For He doth not afflict

willingly nor grieve the children of men." All this the humbled soul is made to understand, and to lay to heart. Where is the reasonableness of complaint when the just and extreme sentence has not been executed? He who has been excused a plank bed does not fret at a crumpled rose-leaf. He who has escaped the gallows does not murmur at the tread-mill. He who is pardoned the hemlock-cup does not resent the wormwood and the gall. "He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." No, the truly enlightened man does not complain of the punishment of his sins; what troubles him far more are the sins that go unpunished. The sense of chastisement gives inward relief; but the secret distress of many is that, whilst others are being bitterly and openly punished, they have escaped detec