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Fifty-six Short Sermons for the Use of Lay Readers
Fiftysix Short Sermons for the Use of Lay Readers Author:Gilbert White Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IV.—PAIN The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain er.—Eomans vm. 22. PAIN is one of the most puzzling things in life. It is so unavoidable, it st... more »rikes its victims so impartially. Why does the good God allow it ? Whatever does it mean ? These are questions that we are all of us, sooner or later, driven to ask. Now there are some answers which are fairly obvious. Pain has a most useful part to play in warning us of many dangers which would otherwise destroy us. The aborigines of Australia feel pain very little, and consequently it is a common thing for them to go to sleep near a fire, and in the morning to find that a hand or foot has been seriously burnt, perhaps destroyed, because the pain has not been enough to waken them. If a young baby did not feel pain and cry the mother would not know that it was ill. In a thousand ways pain is of the utmost service in guarding our life and health. But on the other hand, not only does pain greatly exceed in amount what is necessary to warn us, but life is full of pains which do not warn us ; we feel the pain of a broken leg, or a broken heart too late to warn us, though it may warn others, and our power of suffering, of feeling pain, is greatly in excess of our powers of enjoyment. Again no doubt pain is in many instances a punishment attached to wrong-doing. Wrong-doing often brings to the wrong-doer disease and want, mental distress, and the vengeance of society. The drunkard loses his job and becomes poor; the thief or the murderer is in danger of finding himself in prison or faced with a violent death. Yet though this is true it is by no means the whole truth. The wicked often escape punishment, while the innocent are often most terribly afflicted and punished ; the weak suffer far more than the strong, merely be...« less