for them, the thing lies at his door. He has besides made
them so far dumb that they cannot move the hearts of the oppressors into
whose hands he has given them, telling how hard they find the world, how
sore their life in it. The apostle takes up their case, and gives us
material for an answer to such as blame God for their sad condition.

There are many, I suspect, who from the eighth chapter of St Paul's
epistle to the Romans, gather this much and no more:--that the lower
animals alive at the coming of the Lord, whensoever that may be, will
thenceforward, with such as thereafter may come into existence, lead a
happy life for the time allotted them! Strong champions of God, these
profound believers! What lovers of life, what disciples of St Paul, nay,
what disciples of Jesus, to whom such a gloss is consolation for the
moans of a universe! Truly, the furnace of affliction they would
extinguish thus, casts out the more an evil odour! For all the creatures
who through ages of misery have groaned and travailed and died, to these
mild Christians it is enough that they are dead, therefore, as they
would argue, out of it now! 'It is well with them,' I seem to hear such
say; 'they are mercifully dealt with; their sufferings are over; they
had not to live on for ever in oppression. The God of their life has
taken from them their past, and troubles them with no future!' It is
true this were no small consolation concerning such as are gone away!
Surely rest is better than ceaseless toil and pain! But what shall we
say of such a heedless God as those Christians are content to worship!
Is he a merciful God? Is he a loving God? How shall he die to escape the
remorse of the authorship of so much misery? Our pity turns from the
dead creature to the live creator who could live and know himself the
maker of so many extinguished hearts, whose friend was--not he, but
Death. Blessed be the name of the Father of Jesus, there is no such
creator!

Be we have not to do with the dead only; there are those which live and
suffer: is there no comfort concerning them, but that they too shall at
length die and leave their misery? And what shall we say of those
coming, and yet to come and pass--evermore issuing from the fountain of
life, daily born into evil things? Will the consolation that they will
soon die, suffice for the heart of the child who laments over his dead
bird or rabbit, and would fain love that father in heaven who keeps on
making