effecting His purposes? For "His purpose will stand, and he will do all
his pleasure."

And when we consider the eternity of His being, and of our own, nothing
is more reasonable than that He has ordained a fitting opportunity
beyond the boundary of time. Let us only rid ourselves of our insular,
contracted ideas, and we will see how worthy of the Infinite Wisdom is
such a scheme of grace.

Then there is another consideration. God loves every soul of man. And
every man was endowed with a capacity of worshipping Him, and of having
communion with Him to all eternity. If any failed from any cause
whatever to rise to this great experience, would not God's own happiness
be curtailed?

I know that it has been an orthodox doctrine that God cannot suffer. I
have long had my doubts of it. To be sure, we read that He is "without
variableness or shadow of turning." Does not that apply to His
character? In that respect He is absolutely unchangeable. It is no
infringement of that great truth to believe that He can suffer. I spoke
of this matter lately to a minister of profound mind. He replied: "I
would not think much of Him if He could not suffer."

I have even thought that in the incarnation and death of Christ, the
Father suffered equally with the Son. It is a great mystery; I do not
press it. But my thought has been that there was such infinite sympathy
between them that the Father actually suffered as much as the Son. If a
child is sick, does not the mother suffer as much as the child? And do
we not all suffer if our children are in pain? Now, we inherit as much
of the Divine nature as is possible to be communicated to human nature.