Faith, I say. The mystery of evil, of sorrow, of death, the Gospel does
not pretend to solve: but it tells us that the mystery is proved to be
soluble. For God Himself has taken on Himself the task of solving it;
and has proved by His own act, that if there be evil in the world, it is
none of His; for He hates it, and fights against it, and has fought
against it to the death.

It simply says--Have faith in God. Ask no more of Him--Why hast Thou
made me thus? Ask no more--Why do the wicked prosper on the earth? Ask
no more--Whence pain and death, war and famine, earthquake and tempest,
and all the ills to which flesh is heir?

All fruitless questionings, all peevish repinings, are precluded
henceforth by the passion and death of Christ.

Dost thou suffer? Thou canst not suffer more than the Son of God. Dost
thou sympathize with thy fellow-men? Thou canst not sympathize more than
the Son of God. Dost thou long to right them, to deliver them, even at
the price of thine own blood? Thou canst not long more ardently than the
Son of God, who carried His longing into act, and died for them and thee.
What if the end be not yet? What if evil still endure? What if the
medicine have not yet conquered the disease? Have patience, have faith,
have hope, as thou standest at the foot of Christ's Cross, and holdest
fast to it, the anchor of the soul and reason, as well as of the heart.
For however ill the world may go, or seem to go, the Cross is the
everlasting token that God so loved the world, that He spared not His
only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for it. Whatsoever else is
doubtful, this at least is sure,--that good must conquer, because God is
good; that evil must perish, because God hates evil, even to the death.