October 18

We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain.

OUR most superficial consciousness is of isolated selfishness; then of this self as merged in the isolated family; then of the merging of the family, tribe, nation into the unity of human brotherhood; finally, we take the sentient creation, the whole world of life, nay, inanimate nature herself, into the circle of our widening affection, and recognise the arms of our Father in Heaven clasped round the whole body and bulk of His creation:—the child of His love. “Your Heavenly Father hath care of them,” and in the measure that we have care for them our mind and affections are more attuned to His: “He prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small.” That they have to perish in our interest, to die and suffer that we may live and enjoy, is part of the general economy, so perplexing to faith and yet not quite so bewildering to love, by which God even in Nature gives Himself in sacrifice for the life of His creatures; and teaches us that dying for others may be a greater end than living for ourselves. That, like the Innocents, they are involuntary victims to the general welfare; that, in a sense, it is the Heavenly Father who careth for them with a deeper pity than He has given to any of us—it is He who gives them over to pain and death for others; that it is He Himself who, in them, dies daily for us—all this, far from lessening, should increase our consideration for them, and should make us extend to them the sort of reverence accorded to the garlanded victims at a religious sacrifice.

FATHER TYRRELL

THE SUFFERING CREATION