that comes through suffering.

Have you ever thought how infinitely poorer the world would be in all
that is highest and purest in its life, were there no suffering to call
forth the tender ministry of sympathy?

And now let us summarise what we have been saying. Suffering is a
great mystery, but two facts throw light upon it--the hereafter, the
Incarnation; suffering does discipline character, therefore, judging by
results, it is not incompatible with the love of God, even though its
existence be still a problem; suffering presents us with the splendid
possibility of sympathy, to be exercised in the power of the loving
Christ.

Can we close better than with the thought of the saints in Paradise?

On earth they lived in the always realised consciousness of a personal
Christ. When the Apostles were persecuted and beaten, they departed from
the Council "rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for
His name." So it has been all down the long story of the ages. And the
saints are those "who have washed their robes and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb"; their sufferings sanctified by, and borne in, the
power of Him Who was made perfect by the things which He endured. Their
"light affliction, which was but for a moment, has worked out for them
the exceeding abundant and eternal weight of glory."

Thus the Incarnation, the eternal counsel of the past, that embraced
them while they were on earth, is still enfolding them, while they,
with us, wait and pray for its final consummation, in the coming of
the Kingdom.