November 3

We hid as it were our faces from Him. He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

THE Christian idea of God is not that of a being outside the universe, above its struggles and advances, looking on and taking no part in the process, solely exalted, beneficent, self-determined, and complete. It is also that of a God who loves, who yearns, who suffers, who keenly laments the rebellious and misguided activity of the free agents brought into being by Himself as part of Himself, who enters into the storm and conflict, and is subject to conditions as the soul of it all.

This is the truth which has been reverberating down the ages ever since; it has been the hidden inspiration of saint, apostle, prophet, martyr, and, in however dim and vague a form, has given hope and consolation to the unlettered and poverty-stricken millions:—A God that could understand, that could suffer, that could sympathise, that had felt the extremity of human anguish, the agony of bereavement, had submitted even to the brutal hopeless torture of the innocent, and had become acquainted with the pangs of death—this has been the chief consolation of the Christian religion. This is the extraordinary conception of Godhead to which we have thus far risen. "This is My beloved Son."

SIR OLIVER LODGE

"Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it by and by."

OUR SUFFERING GOD