wisest course is to beat ourselves down before that which we cannot
modify. Beneath the car of this Juggernaut we must flout our judgments
and crush our affections. As He knows so well where to hit us we must
stifle our moans when He does so. As He knows so well what will ring our
hearts we must be content to let Him give so that He can the more
poignantly take away. The highest exercise of our own free will is to
"be still and murmur not"--to admit that we need the chastisement--to
crouch beneath the blows which we tell ourselves are delivered in love,
even though it is hard to see where the love comes in.



II


I know nothing more tragic than those efforts on the part of
heart-broken people, coming within the experience of all of us, to make
themselves feel that this terrible "Will of God" must be right, no
matter how much it seems wrong.

A young man with a wife and family to support is struck down by a
lingering illness which makes him a burden. All his Job's comforters
tell him that God has brought the affliction upon him, and that to bow
to the "Inscrutable Will" must be his first act of piety.

A young mother is rejoicing in her baby when its little life is suddenly
snuffed out. She must school herself to say, quite irrespective of the
spirit of renunciation which inspires the words, "The Lord gave and the
Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord."