revocability of the past. Yet it is a lesson which every man greatly needs to learn, that no repentance can undo the evil that he has done. No forgiveness of ours, no forgiveness of God's, can make the thing as though it has not been. Forgiveness may restore courage to his soul, and hope, and may inspire him with the determination to do what yet remains possible to repair the harm that he has wrought. But the past cannot be recalled. Too often the professed teachers of religion have so spoken of forgiveness that they have left this truth to be insisted upon by others, as it is, for example, by Mr. Bernard Shaw in his play "Major Barbara"; yet it is vital for the true understanding, the Christian understanding, of the significance of life. But most of all the confusion plays havoc with our conception of love. Strange as it may seem, it is actually the case that objection is sometimes made to certain theories of the Atonement that their emphasis on the love of God makes them not sufficiently stern towards sin. Such an objection can come only from those who do not understand what love means. No quality that we know can approach love for sternness-not justice, not cruelty. The just man may stop short of inflicting the pain that would

really cure. The cruel man is willing to hurt his victim, but only so far that he does not also hurt himself. But the love of God is willing to share in my suffering, and to go on sharing in it, until it has done its work. It seeks, and seeks still, until it finds. There need be no fear of sternness disappearing from the universe so long as love sits enthroned at its heart.

For it is not love that makes us "let off" an offender from bearing the consequences of his sin; rather it is self-pity. The deed has been done, and others-others who were innocent-are suffering for his fault. If he is truly sorry, he will wish to share the suffering with them; and if we love him, we shall be glad that he should do so. He will desire nothing so little as to go scot-free. But how often it happens that we are watching him, and "because he is sorry," we say, "we cannot bear to see him suffer." Our words are truer than we know. "We cannot bear it"—that is exactly the case. It is we who are not strong enough to play our part. And so we take off the punishment which he should bear, and think that we have thereby shown the kindness of our hearts. And alas! the world thinks so, too. But our kindness, our love, is to ourselves.

We do not love him well enough to be willing to suffer for his sake. We do not love him well enough to let him bear the pain that might heal. And then we ascribe to God this love which we so misunderstand, and we think that the more He loves us the easier and less exacting He will be.

Thank God that His love for us is different from that, that it is stern enough to let us suffer, and strong enough to share the pain. And if we love Him too-even if we can say no more than that we want to love Him-we shall not ask for His forgiveness in order that we may wriggle out of the punishment which the laws of nature have assigned to our folly and self-will, but we shall ask for it in order that we may know once more the gladness of His friendship. "By what things a man sinneth, by these he is punished;" nevertheless, we will arise and go to our Father.

I

CHAPTER IV

THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT AND
THE PROBLEM OF SUFFERING

Love never faileth.-I Corinthians xiii: 8.

COMMENCED these lectures a couple of

months ago by maintaining that the doctrine of

the unity of God-a doctrine which is fundamental for the Christian, but by no means for the Christian alone-involves the acknowledgment on the part of those who accept it that alike in the course of nature, in the development of the life of human society, and in the processes of reason the same divine intelligence is working, and they are therefore all equally valid as revelations to us of the divine nature. I would repeat my conviction that the explicit recognition of this implication of monotheistic belief is of far greater practical importance than may appear at first sight; and that in the attempt which, with varying degrees of thoroughness, we all make to understand the problems

of life, it brings help to us again and again. I have already mentioned, by way of example, its bearing on the question of the ultimate basis of ethical principles, and on that of the trustworthiness of reason as an instrument for the discovery of truth. And at the end of the first chapter I pointed out its relation to one of the most urgent of our present controversies in religion, and asserted that a theology which failed to give full value to the teachings of science and history, and was content instead to rest upon the sincere but necessarily inadequate interpretations of men who were ignorant of both, was therein not exhibiting either its reverence or its orthodoxy, but rather was proclaiming its practical denial of the cardinal fact of the unity of God.

The subsequent chapters have attempted to apply in two or three instances the conclusion to which the first conducted us, and to consider certain religious ideas in their relation to the concept of natural law. The doctrine of providence is usually held, if it is held at all, in a shape which is flagrantly inconsistent with the facts of experience, and I tried—with what success I do not know-to commend to you a form of that doctrine which seems to me to be at once more reverent and more true. That led us on