suffering

111:7.2May I ad­mon­ish you to heed the dis­tant echo of the Ad­juster’s faith­ful call to your soul? The in­dwelling Ad­juster can­not stop or even ma­te­ri­ally al­ter your ca­reer strug­gle of time; the Ad­juster can­not lessen the hard­ships of life as you jour­ney on through this world of toil. The di­vine in­dweller can only pa­tiently for­bear while you fight the bat­tle of life as it is lived on your planet; but you could, if you only would—as you work and worry, as you fight and toil—per­mit the valiant Ad­juster to fight with you and for you. You could be so com­forted and in­spired, so en­thralled and in­trigued, if you would only al­low the Ad­juster con­stantly to bring forth the pic­tures of the real mo­tive, the fi­nal aim, and the eter­nal pur­pose of all this dif­fi­cult, up­hill strug­gle with the com­mon­place prob­lems of your pres­ent ma­te­rial world.

3:5.61. Is cour­age—strength of char­ac­ter—de­sir­able? Then must man be reared in an en­vi­ron­ment which ne­ces­si­tates grap­pling with hard­ships and re­act­ing to dis­ap­point­ments.

3:5.149. Is plea­sure—the sat­is­fac­tion of hap­pi­ness—de­sir­able? Then must man live in a world where the al­ter­na­tive of pain and the like­li­hood of suf­fer­ing are ever-pres­ent ex­pe­ri­en­tial pos­si­bil­i­ties.

181:1.6“Doubt not any of these truths even af­ter you are scat­tered abroad by per­se­cu­tion and are down­cast by many sor­rows. When you feel that you are alone in the world, I will know of your iso­la­tion even as, when you are scat­tered ev­ery man to his own place, leav­ing the Son of Man in the hands of his en­e­mies, you will know of mine. But I am never alone; al­ways is the Fa­ther with me. Even at such a time I will pray for you. And all of these things have I told you that you might have peace and have it more abun­dantly. In this world you will have tribu­la­tion, but be of good cheer; I have tri­umphed in the world and shown you the way to eter­nal joy and ev­er­last­ing ser­vice.”

159:3.11Teach all be­liev­ers to avoid lean­ing upon the in­se­cure props of false sym­pa­thy. You can­not de­velop strong char­ac­ters out of the in­dul­gence of self-pity; hon­estly en­deavor to avoid the de­cep­tive in­flu­ence of mere fel­low­ship in mis­ery. Ex­tend sym­pa­thy to the brave and coura­geous while you with­hold over­much pity from those cow­ardly souls who only half­heart­edly stand up be­fore the tri­als of liv­ing. Of­fer not con­so­la­tion to those who lie down be­fore their trou­bles with­out a strug­gle. Sym­pa­thize not with your fel­lows merely that they may sym­pa­thize with you in re­turn.

182:3.9The ex­pe­ri­ence of part­ing with the apos­tles was a great strain on the hu­man heart of Je­sus; this sor­row of love bore down on him and made it more dif­fi­cult to face such a death as he well knew awaited him. He re­al­ized how weak and how ig­no­rant his apos­tles were, and he dreaded to leave them. He well knew that the time of his de­par­ture had come, but his hu­man heart longed to find out whether there might not pos­si­bly be some le­git­i­mate av­enue of es­cape from this ter­ri­ble plight of suf­fer­ing and sor­row. And when it had thus sought es­cape, and failed, it was will­ing to drink the cup. The di­vine mind of Mi­chael knew he had done his best for the twelve apos­tles; but the hu­man heart of Je­sus wished that more might have been done for them be­fore they should be left alone in the world. Je­sus’ heart was be­ing crushed; he truly loved his breth­ren. He was iso­lated from his fam­ily in the flesh; one of his cho­sen as­so­ciates was be­tray­ing him. His fa­ther Joseph’s peo­ple had re­jected him and thereby sealed their doom as a peo­ple with a spe­cial mis­sion on earth. His soul was tor­tured by baf­fled love and re­jected mercy. It was just one of those aw­ful hu­man mo­ments when ev­ery­thing seems to bear down with crush­ing cru­elty and ter­ri­ble agony.

34:6.13The con­scious­ness of the spirit dom­i­na­tion of a hu­man life is pres­ently at­tended by an in­creas­ing ex­hi­bi­tion of the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the Spirit in the life re­ac­tions of such a spirit-led mor­tal, “for the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suf­fer­ing, gen­tle­ness, good­ness, faith, meek­ness, and tem­per­ance.” Such spirit-guided and di­vinely il­lu­mi­nated mor­tals, while they yet tread the lowly paths of toil and in hu­man faith­ful­ness per­form the du­ties of their earthly as­sign­ments, have al­ready be­gun to dis­cern the lights of eter­nal life as they glim­mer on the far­away shores of an­other world; al­ready have they be­gun to com­pre­hend the re­al­ity of that in­spir­ing and com­fort­ing truth, “The king­dom of God is not meat and drink but righ­teous­ness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And through­out ev­ery trial and in the pres­ence of ev­ery hard­ship, spirit-born souls are sus­tained by that hope which tran­scends all fear be­cause the love of God is shed abroad in all hearts by the pres­ence of the di­vine Spirit.

101:3.84. Ex­hibits in­ex­pli­ca­ble poise and sus­tain­ing tran­quil­lity not­with­stand­ing baf­fling dis­eases and even acute phys­i­cal suf­fer­ing.

156:5.13God-know­ing in­di­vid­u­als are not dis­cour­aged by mis­for­tune or down­cast by dis­ap­point­ment. Be­liev­ers are im­mune to the de­pres­sion con­se­quent upon purely ma­te­rial up­heavals; spirit liv­ers are not per­turbed by the episodes of the ma­te­rial world. Can­di­dates for eter­nal life are prac­ti­tion­ers of an in­vig­o­rat­ing and con­struc­tive tech­nique for meet­ing all of the vi­cis­si­tudes and ha­rass­ments of mor­tal liv­ing. Ev­ery day a true be­liever lives, he finds it eas­ier to do the right thing.

156:5.20The God-con­scious mor­tal is cer­tain of sal­va­tion; he is un­afraid of life; he is hon­est and con­sis­tent. He knows how bravely to en­dure un­avoid­able suf­fer­ing; he is un­com­plain­ing when faced by in­es­cap­able hard­ship.

188:5.10When think­ing men and women look upon Je­sus as he of­fers up his life on the cross, they will hardly again per­mit them­selves to com­plain at even the sever­est hard­ships of life, much less at petty ha­rass­ments and their many purely fic­ti­tious grievances. His life was so glo­ri­ous and his death so tri­umphant that we are all en­ticed to a will­ing­ness to share both. There is true draw­ing power in the whole be­stowal of Mi­chael, from the days of his youth to this over­whelm­ing spec­ta­cle of his death on the cross.

• greatest affliction is never to have been afflicted
• wisdom only learned through experiencing tribulation

48:7.1412. The great­est af­flic­tion of the cos­mos is never to have been af­flicted. Mor­tals only learn wis­dom by ex­pe­ri­enc­ing tribu­la­tion.

• essential to progressive evolution

86:2.1Anx­i­ety was a nat­u­ral state of the sav­age mind. When men and women fall vic­tims to ex­ces­sive anx­i­ety, they are sim­ply re­vert­ing to the nat­u­ral es­tate of their far-dis­tant an­ces­tors; and when anx­i­ety be­comes ac­tu­ally painful, it in­hibits ac­tiv­ity and un­fail­ingly in­sti­tutes evo­lu­tion­ary changes and bi­o­logic adap­ta­tions. Pain and suf­fer­ing are es­sen­tial to pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion.

• may be tempering fire transmuting soft iron into tempered steel of real character

118:10.9Some of the amaz­ingly for­tu­itous con­di­tions oc­ca­sion­ally pre­vail­ing on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds may be due to the grad­u­ally emerg­ing pres­ence of the Su­preme, the fore­tast­ing of his fu­ture uni­verse ac­tiv­i­ties. Most of what a mor­tal would call prov­i­den­tial is not; his judg­ment of such mat­ters is very hand­i­capped by lack of far­sighted vi­sion into the true mean­ings of the cir­cum­stances of life. Much of what a mor­tal would call good luck might re­ally be bad luck; the smile of for­tune that be­stows un­earned leisure and un­de­served wealth may be the great­est of hu­man af­flic­tions; the ap­par­ent cru­elty of a per­verse fate that heaps tribu­la­tion upon some suf­fer­ing mor­tal may in re­al­ity be the tem­per­ing fire that is trans­mut­ing the soft iron of im­ma­ture per­son­al­ity into the tem­pered steel of real char­ac­ter.

• wisdom only learned through experiencing tribulation

132:7.2“Ga­nid, the man was not hun­gry for truth. He was not dis­sat­is­fied with him­self. He was not ready to ask for help, and the eyes of his mind were not open to re­ceive light for the soul. That man was not ripe for the har­vest of sal­va­tion; he must be al­lowed more time for the tri­als and dif­fi­cul­ties of life to pre­pare him for the re­cep­tion of wis­dom and higher learn­ing. Or, if we could have him live with us, we might by our lives show him the Fa­ther in heaven, and thus would he be­come so at­tracted by our lives as sons of God that he would be con­strained to in­quire about our Fa­ther. You can­not re­veal God to those who do not seek for him; you can­not lead un­will­ing souls into the joys of sal­va­tion. Man must be­come hun­gry for truth as a re­sult of the ex­pe­ri­ences of liv­ing, or he must de­sire to know God as the re­sult of con­tact with the lives of those who are ac­quainted with the di­vine Fa­ther be­fore an­other hu­man be­ing can act as the means of lead­ing such a fel­low mor­tal to the Fa­ther in heaven. If we know God, our real busi­ness on earth is so to live as to per­mit the Fa­ther to re­veal him­self in our lives, and thus will all God-seek­ing per­sons see the Fa­ther and ask for our help in find­ing out more about the God who in this man­ner finds ex­pres­sion in our lives.”

• many will enter kingdom only with much s.

136:8.6Je­sus chose to es­tab­lish the king­dom of heaven in the hearts of man­kind by nat­u­ral, or­di­nary, dif­fi­cult, and try­ing meth­ods, just such pro­ce­dures as his earth chil­dren must sub­se­quently fol­low in their work of en­larg­ing and ex­tend­ing that heav­enly king­dom. For well did the Son of Man know that it would be “through much tribu­la­tion that many of the chil­dren of all ages would en­ter into the king­dom.” Je­sus was now pass­ing through the great test of civ­i­lized man, to have power and stead­fastly refuse to use it for purely self­ish or per­sonal pur­poses.

• many will enter kingdom only with much s.

137:6.5Je­sus in­structed them to take up their reg­u­lar du­ties un­til “the hour of the king­dom comes.” And to en­cour­age them, he set an ex­am­ple by go­ing back reg­u­larly to work in the boat­shop. In ex­plain­ing that they should spend three hours ev­ery evening in study and prepa­ra­tion for their fu­ture work, Je­sus fur­ther said: “We will all re­main here­about un­til the Fa­ther bids me call you. Each of you must now re­turn to his ac­cus­tomed work just as if noth­ing had hap­pened. Tell no man about me and re­mem­ber that my king­dom is not to come with noise and glamor, but rather must it come through the great change which my Fa­ther will have wrought in your hearts and in the hearts of those who shall be called to join you in the coun­cils of the king­dom. You are now my friends; I trust you and I love you; you are soon to be­come my per­sonal as­so­ciates. Be pa­tient, be gen­tle. Be ever obe­di­ent to the Fa­ther’s will. Make your­selves ready for the call of the king­dom. While you will ex­pe­ri­ence great joy in the ser­vice of my Fa­ther, you should also be pre­pared for trou­ble, for I warn you that it will be only through much tribu­la­tion that many will en­ter the king­dom. But those who have found the king­dom, their joy will be full, and they shall be called the blest of all the earth. But do not en­ter­tain false hope; the world will stum­ble at my words. Even you, my friends, do not fully per­ceive what I am un­fold­ing to your con­fused minds. Make no mis­take; we go forth to la­bor for a gen­er­a­tion of sign seek­ers. They will de­mand won­der-work­ing as the proof that I am sent by my Fa­ther, and they will be slow to rec­og­nize in the rev­e­la­tion of my Fa­ther’s love the cre­den­tials of my mis­sion.”

148:5.1At an­other of these pri­vate in­ter­views in the gar­den Na­than­iel asked Je­sus: “Mas­ter, though I am be­gin­ning to un­der­stand why you refuse to prac­tice heal­ing in­dis­crim­i­nately, I am still at a loss to un­der­stand why the lov­ing Fa­ther in heaven per­mits so many of his chil­dren on earth to suf­fer so many af­flic­tions.” The Mas­ter an­swered Na­than­iel, say­ing:

148:5.2“Na­than­iel, you and many oth­ers are thus per­plexed be­cause you do not com­pre­hend how the nat­u­ral or­der of this world has been so many times up­set by the sin­ful ad­ven­tures of cer­tain re­bel­lious traitors to the Fa­ther’s will. And I have come to make a be­gin­ning of set­ting these things in or­der. But many ages will be re­quired to re­store this part of the uni­verse to for­mer paths and thus re­lease the chil­dren of men from the ex­tra bur­dens of sin and re­bel­lion. The pres­ence of evil alone is suf­fi­cient test for the as­cen­sion of man—sin is not es­sen­tial to sur­vival.

148:5.3“But, my son, you should know that the Fa­ther does not pur­posely af­flict his chil­dren. Man brings down upon him­self un­nec­es­sary af­flic­tion as a re­sult of his per­sis­tent re­fusal to walk in the bet­ter ways of the di­vine will. Af­flic­tion is po­ten­tial in evil, but much of it has been pro­duced by sin and in­iq­uity. Many un­usual events have tran­spired on this world, and it is not strange that all think­ing men should be per­plexed by the scenes of suf­fer­ing and af­flic­tion which they wit­ness. But of one thing you may be sure: The Fa­ther does not send af­flic­tion as an ar­bi­trary pun­ish­ment for wrong­do­ing. The im­per­fec­tions and hand­i­caps of evil are in­her­ent; the penal­ties of sin are in­ev­i­ta­ble; the de­stroy­ing con­se­quences of in­iq­uity are in­ex­orable. Man should not blame God for those af­flic­tions which are the nat­u­ral re­sult of the life which he chooses to live; nei­ther should man com­plain of those ex­pe­ri­ences which are a part of life as it is lived on this world. It is the Fa­ther’s will that mor­tal man should work per­sis­tently and con­sis­tently to­ward the bet­ter­ment of his es­tate on earth. In­tel­li­gent ap­pli­ca­tion would en­able man to over­come much of his earthly mis­ery.

148:5.4“Na­than­iel, it is our mis­sion to help men solve their spir­i­tual prob­lems and in this way to quicken their minds so that they may be the bet­ter pre­pared and in­spired to go about solv­ing their man­i­fold ma­te­rial prob­lems. I know of your con­fu­sion as you have read the Scrip­tures. All too of­ten there has pre­vailed a ten­dency to as­cribe to God the re­spon­si­bil­ity for ev­ery­thing which ig­no­rant man fails to un­der­stand. The Fa­ther is not per­son­ally re­spon­si­ble for all you may fail to com­pre­hend. Do not doubt the love of the Fa­ther just be­cause some just and wise law of his or­dain­ing chances to af­flict you be­cause you have in­no­cently or de­lib­er­ately trans­gressed such a di­vine or­di­nance.

• there is correction in suffering

148:5.5“But, Na­than­iel, there is much in the Scrip­tures which would have in­structed you if you had only read with dis­cern­ment. Do you not re­mem­ber that it is writ­ten: ‘My son, de­spise not the chas­ten­ing of the Lord; nei­ther be weary of his cor­rec­tion, for whom the Lord loves he cor­rects, even as the fa­ther cor­rects the son in whom he takes de­light.’ ‘The Lord does not af­flict will­ingly.’ ‘Be­fore I was af­flicted, I went astray, but now do I keep the law. Af­flic­tion was good for me that I might thereby learn the di­vine statutes.’ ‘I know your sor­rows. The eter­nal God is your refuge, while un­der­neath are the ev­er­last­ing arms.’ ‘The Lord also is a refuge for the op­pressed, a haven of rest in times of trou­ble.’ ‘The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of af­flic­tion; the Lord will not for­get the sick.’ ‘As a fa­ther shows com­pas­sion for his chil­dren, so is the Lord com­pas­sion­ate to those who fear him. He knows your body; he re­mem­bers that you are dust.’ ‘He heals the bro­ken­hearted and binds up their wounds.’ ‘He is the hope of the poor, the strength of the needy in his dis­tress, a refuge from the storm, and a shadow from the dev­as­tat­ing heat.’ ‘He gives power to the faint, and to them who have no might he in­creases strength.’ ‘A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smok­ing flax he will not quench.’ ‘When you pass through the wa­ters of af­flic­tion, I will be with you, and when the rivers of ad­ver­sity over­flow you, I will not for­sake you.’ ‘He has sent me to bind up the bro­ken­hearted, to pro­claim lib­erty to the cap­tives, and to com­fort all who mourn.’ ‘There is cor­rec­tion in suf­fer­ing; af­flic­tion does not spring forth from the dust.’”

• purpose of affliction

151:0.1By March 10 all of the preach­ing and teach­ing groups had for­gath­ered at Beth­saida. Thurs­day night and Fri­day many of them went out to fish, while on the Sab­bath day they at­tended the syn­a­gogue to hear an aged Jew of Da­mas­cus dis­course on the glory of fa­ther Abra­ham. Je­sus spent most of this Sab­bath day alone in the hills. That Sat­ur­day night the Mas­ter talked for more than an hour to the as­sem­bled groups on “The mis­sion of ad­ver­sity and the spir­i­tual value of dis­ap­point­ment.” This was a mem­o­rable oc­ca­sion, and his hear­ers never for­got the les­son he im­parted.

• trials reveal man’s soul

165:6.2“In the time of test­ing, a man’s soul is re­vealed; trial dis­closes what re­ally is in the heart. When the ser­vant is tested and proved, then may the lord of the house set such a ser­vant over his house­hold and safely trust this faith­ful stew­ard to see that his chil­dren are fed and nur­tured. Like­wise, will I soon know who can be trusted with the wel­fare of my chil­dren when I shall have re­turned to the Fa­ther. As the lord of the house­hold shall set the true and tried ser­vant over the af­fairs of his fam­ily, so will I ex­alt those who en­dure the tri­als of this hour in the af­fairs of my king­dom.

• many will enter kingdom only with much s.

181:2.29As Pe­ter stood there be­fore his Mas­ter, all atrem­ble with in­tense emo­tion and over­flow­ing with gen­uine love for him, Je­sus looked straight into his moist­ened eyes as he said: “Pe­ter, ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, this night the cock will not crow un­til you have de­nied me three or four times. And thus what you have failed to learn from peace­ful as­so­ci­a­tion with me, you will learn through much trou­ble and many sor­rows. And af­ter you have re­ally learned this need­ful les­son, you should strengthen your breth­ren and go on liv­ing a life ded­i­cated to preach­ing this gospel, though you may fall into prison and, per­haps, fol­low me in pay­ing the su­preme price of lov­ing ser­vice in the build­ing of the Fa­ther’s king­dom.

148:6.1It was this same evening at Beth­saida that John also asked Je­sus why so many ap­par­ently in­no­cent peo­ple suf­fered from so many dis­eases and ex­pe­ri­enced so many af­flic­tions. In an­swer­ing John’s ques­tions, among many other things, the Mas­ter said:

148:6.2“My son, you do not com­pre­hend the mean­ing of ad­ver­sity or the mis­sion of suf­fer­ing. Have you not read that mas­ter­piece of Semitic lit­er­a­ture—the Scrip­ture story of the af­flic­tions of Job? Do you not re­call how this won­der­ful para­ble be­gins with the recital of the ma­te­rial pros­per­ity of the Lord’s ser­vant? You well re­mem­ber that Job was blessed with chil­dren, wealth, dig­nity, po­si­tion, health, and ev­ery­thing else which men value in this tem­po­ral life. Ac­cord­ing to the time-hon­ored teach­ings of the chil­dren of Abra­ham such ma­te­rial pros­per­ity was all-suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence of di­vine fa­vor. But such ma­te­rial pos­ses­sions and such tem­po­ral pros­per­ity do not in­di­cate God’s fa­vor. My Fa­ther in heaven loves the poor just as much as the rich; he is no re­specter of per­sons.

148:6.3“Al­though trans­gres­sion of di­vine law is sooner or later fol­lowed by the har­vest of pun­ish­ment, while men cer­tainly even­tu­ally do reap what they sow, still you should know that hu­man suf­fer­ing is not al­ways a pun­ish­ment for an­te­ced­ent sin. Both Job and his friends failed to find the true an­swer for their per­plex­i­ties. And with the light you now en­joy you would hardly as­sign to ei­ther Sa­tan or God the parts they play in this unique para­ble. While Job did not, through suf­fer­ing, find the res­o­lu­tion of his in­tel­lec­tual trou­bles or the so­lu­tion of his phil­o­soph­i­cal dif­fi­cul­ties, he did achieve great vic­to­ries; even in the very face of the break­down of his the­o­log­i­cal de­fenses he as­cended to those spir­i­tual heights where he could sin­cerely say, ‘I ab­hor my­self’; then was there granted him the sal­va­tion of a vi­sion of God. So even through mis­un­der­stood suf­fer­ing, Job as­cended to the super­hu­man plane of moral un­der­stand­ing and spir­i­tual in­sight. When the suf­fer­ing ser­vant ob­tains a vi­sion of God, there fol­lows a soul peace which passes all hu­man un­der­stand­ing.

148:6.4“The first of Job’s friends, Elip­haz, ex­horted the suf­ferer to ex­hibit in his af­flic­tions the same for­ti­tude he had pre­scribed for oth­ers dur­ing the days of his pros­per­ity. Said this false com­forter: ‘Trust in your re­li­gion, Job; re­mem­ber that it is the wicked and not the righ­teous who suf­fer. You must de­serve this pun­ish­ment, else you would not be af­flicted. You well know that no man can be righ­teous in God’s sight. You know that the wicked never re­ally pros­per. Any­way, man seems pre­des­tined to trou­ble, and per­haps the Lord is only chastis­ing you for your own good.’ No won­der poor Job failed to get much com­fort from such an in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the prob­lem of hu­man suf­fer­ing.

148:6.5“But the coun­sel of his sec­ond friend, Bil­dad, was even more de­press­ing, not­with­stand­ing its sound­ness from the stand­point of the then ac­cepted the­ol­ogy. Said Bil­dad: ‘God can­not be un­just. Your chil­dren must have been sin­ners since they per­ished; you must be in er­ror, else you would not be so af­flicted. And if you are re­ally righ­teous, God will cer­tainly de­liver you from your af­flic­tions. You should learn from the his­tory of God’s deal­ings with man that the Al­mighty de­stroys only the wicked.’

148:6.6“And then you re­mem­ber how Job replied to his friends, say­ing: ‘I well know that God does not hear my cry for help. How can God be just and at the same time so ut­terly dis­re­gard my in­no­cence? I am learn­ing that I can get no sat­is­fac­tion from ap­peal­ing to the Al­mighty. Can­not you dis­cern that God tol­er­ates the per­se­cu­tion of the good by the wicked? And since man is so weak, what chance has he for con­sid­er­a­tion at the hands of an om­nipo­tent God? God has made me as I am, and when he thus turns upon me, I am de­fense­less. And why did God ever cre­ate me just to suf­fer in this mis­er­able fash­ion?’

148:6.7“And who can chal­lenge the at­ti­tude of Job in view of the coun­sel of his friends and the er­ro­neous ideas of God which oc­cu­pied his own mind? Do you not see that Job longed for a hu­man God, that he hun­gered to com­mune with a di­vine Be­ing who knows man’s mor­tal es­tate and un­der­stands that the just must of­ten suf­fer in in­no­cence as a part of this first life of the long Par­a­dise as­cent? Where­fore has the Son of Man come forth from the Fa­ther to live such a life in the flesh that he will be able to com­fort and suc­cor all those who must hence­forth be called upon to en­dure the af­flic­tions of Job.

148:6.8“Job’s third friend, Zophar, then spoke still less com­fort­ing words when he said: ‘You are fool­ish to claim to be righ­teous, see­ing that you are thus af­flicted. But I ad­mit that it is im­pos­si­ble to com­pre­hend God’s ways. Per­haps there is some hid­den pur­pose in all your mis­eries.’ And when Job had lis­tened to all three of his friends, he ap­pealed di­rectly to God for help, plead­ing the fact that ‘man, born of woman, is few of days and full of trou­ble.’

148:6.9“Then be­gan the sec­ond ses­sion with his friends. Elip­haz grew more stern, ac­cus­ing, and sar­cas­tic. Bil­dad be­came in­dig­nant at Job’s con­tempt for his friends. Zophar re­it­er­ated his melan­choly ad­vice. Job by this time had be­come dis­gusted with his friends and ap­pealed again to God, and now he ap­pealed to a just God against the God of in­jus­tice em­bod­ied in the phi­los­o­phy of his friends and en­shrined even in his own re­li­gious at­ti­tude. Next Job took refuge in the con­so­la­tion of a fu­ture life in which the in­equities of mor­tal ex­is­tence may be more justly rec­ti­fied. Fail­ure to re­ceive help from man drives Job to God. Then en­sues the great strug­gle in his heart be­tween faith and doubt. Fi­nally, the hu­man suf­ferer be­gins to see the light of life; his tor­tured soul as­cends to new heights of hope and cour­age; he may suf­fer on and even die, but his en­light­ened soul now ut­ters that cry of tri­umph, ‘My Vin­di­ca­tor lives!’

148:6.10“Job was al­to­gether right when he chal­lenged the doc­trine that God af­flicts chil­dren in or­der to pun­ish their par­ents. Job was ever ready to ad­mit that God is righ­teous, but he longed for some soul-sat­is­fy­ing rev­e­la­tion of the per­sonal char­ac­ter of the Eter­nal. And that is our mis­sion on earth. No more shall suf­fer­ing mor­tals be de­nied the com­fort of know­ing the love of God and un­der­stand­ing the mercy of the Fa­ther in heaven. While the speech of God spo­ken from the whirl­wind was a ma­jes­tic con­cept for the day of its ut­ter­ance, you have al­ready learned that the Fa­ther does not thus re­veal him­self, but rather that he speaks within the hu­man heart as a still, small voice, say­ing, ‘This is the way; walk therein.’ Do you not com­pre­hend that God dwells within you, that he has be­come what you are that he may make you what he is!”

148:6.11Then Je­sus made this fi­nal state­ment: “The Fa­ther in heaven does not will­ingly af­flict the chil­dren of men. Man suf­fers, first, from the ac­ci­dents of time and the im­per­fec­tions of the evil of an im­ma­ture phys­i­cal ex­is­tence. Next, he suf­fers the in­ex­orable con­se­quences of sin—the trans­gres­sion of the laws of life and light. And fi­nally, man reaps the har­vest of his own in­iq­ui­tous per­sis­tence in re­bel­lion against the righ­teous rule of heaven on earth. But man’s mis­eries are not a per­sonal vis­i­ta­tion of di­vine judg­ment. Man can, and will, do much to lessen his tem­po­ral suf­fer­ings. But once and for all be de­liv­ered from the su­per­sti­tion that God af­flicts man at the be­hest of the evil one. Study the Book of Job just to dis­cover how many wrong ideas of God even good men may hon­estly en­ter­tain; and then note how even the painfully af­flicted Job found the God of com­fort and sal­va­tion in spite of such er­ro­neous teach­ings. At last his faith pierced the clouds of suf­fer­ing to dis­cern the light of life pour­ing forth from the Fa­ther as heal­ing mercy and ev­er­last­ing righ­teous­ness.”

148:6.12John pon­dered these say­ings in his heart for many days. His en­tire af­ter­life was markedly changed as a re­sult of this con­ver­sa­tion with the Mas­ter in the gar­den, and he did much, in later times, to cause the other apos­tles to change their view­points re­gard­ing the source, na­ture, and pur­pose of com­mon­place hu­man af­flic­tions. But John never spoke of this con­fer­ence un­til af­ter the Mas­ter had de­parted.

3:6.6Does the Par­a­dise Fa­ther suf­fer? I do not know. The Cre­ator Sons most cer­tainly can and some­times do, even as do mor­tals. The Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit suf­fer in a mod­i­fied sense. I think the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther does, but I can­not un­der­stand how; per­haps through the per­son­al­ity cir­cuit or through the in­di­vid­u­al­ity of the Thought Ad­justers and other be­stowals of his eter­nal na­ture. He has said of the mor­tal races, “In all your af­flic­tions I am af­flicted.” He un­ques­tion­ably ex­pe­ri­ences a fa­therly and sym­pa­thetic un­der­stand­ing; he may truly suf­fer, but I do not com­pre­hend the na­ture thereof.

48:6.36Even as mor­tals, so have these an­gels been fa­ther to many dis­ap­point­ments, and they will point out that some­times your most dis­ap­point­ing dis­ap­point­ments have be­come your great­est bless­ings. Some­times the plant­ing of a seed ne­ces­si­tates its death, the death of your fond­est hopes, be­fore it can be re­born to bear the fruits of new life and new op­por­tu­nity. And from them you will learn to suf­fer less through sor­row and dis­ap­point­ment, first, by mak­ing fewer per­sonal plans con­cern­ing other per­son­al­i­ties, and then, by ac­cept­ing your lot when you have faith­fully per­formed your duty.

1:5.16It is lit­er­ally true: “In all your af­flic­tions he is af­flicted.” “In all your tri­umphs he tri­umphs in and with you.” His preper­sonal di­vine spirit is a real part of you. The Isle of Par­a­dise re­sponds to all the phys­i­cal meta­mor­phoses of the uni­verse of uni­verses; the Eter­nal Son in­cludes all the spirit im­pulses of all cre­ation; the Con­joint Ac­tor en­com­passes all the mind ex­pres­sion of the ex­pand­ing cos­mos. The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther re­al­izes in the full­ness of the di­vine con­scious­ness all the in­di­vid­ual ex­pe­ri­ence of the pro­gres­sive strug­gles of the ex­pand­ing minds and the as­cend­ing spir­its of ev­ery en­tity, be­ing, and per­son­al­ity of the whole evo­lu­tion­ary cre­ation of time and space. And all this is lit­er­ally true, for “in Him we all live and move and have our be­ing.”

2:5.3The Cre­ators are the very first to at­tempt to save man from the dis­as­trous re­sults of his fool­ish trans­gres­sion of the di­vine laws. God’s love is by na­ture a fa­therly af­fec­tion; there­fore does he some­times “chas­ten us for our own profit, that we may be par­tak­ers of his ho­li­ness.” Even dur­ing your fiery tri­als re­mem­ber that “in all our af­flic­tions he is af­flicted with us.”

97:5.3Speak­ing to the fear-rid­den and soul-hun­gry He­brews, this prophet said: “Arise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” “The spirit of the Lord is upon me be­cause he has anointed me to preach good tid­ings to the meek; he has sent me to bind up the bro­ken­hearted, to pro­claim lib­erty to the cap­tives and the open­ing of the prison to those who are bound.” “I will greatly re­joice in the Lord, my soul shall be joy­ful in my God, for he has clothed me with the gar­ments of sal­va­tion and has cov­ered me with his robe of righ­teous­ness.” “In all their af­flic­tions he was af­flicted, and the an­gel of his pres­ence saved them. In his love and in his pity he re­deemed them.”

54:6.4But one thing should be made clear: If you are made to suf­fer the evil con­se­quences of the sin of some mem­ber of your fam­ily, some fel­low cit­i­zen or fel­low mor­tal, even re­bel­lion in the sys­tem or else­where—no mat­ter what you may have to en­dure be­cause of the wrong­do­ing of your as­so­ciates, fel­lows, or su­pe­ri­ors—you may rest se­cure in the eter­nal as­sur­ance that such tribu­la­tions are tran­sient af­flic­tions. None of these fra­ter­nal con­se­quences of mis­be­hav­ior in the group can ever jeop­ar­dize your eter­nal prospects or in the least de­gree de­prive you of your di­vine right of Par­a­dise as­cen­sion and God at­tain­ment.

182:3.7Ear­lier in the evening it had not seemed so dif­fi­cult to drink the cup, but as the hu­man Je­sus bade farewell to his apos­tles and sent them to their rest, the trial grew more ap­palling. Je­sus ex­pe­ri­enced that nat­u­ral ebb and flow of feel­ing which is com­mon to all hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence, and just now he was weary from work, ex­hausted from the long hours of stren­u­ous la­bor and painful anx­i­ety con­cern­ing the safety of his apos­tles. While no mor­tal can pre­sume to un­der­stand the thoughts and feel­ings of the in­car­nate Son of God at such a time as this, we know that he en­dured great an­guish and suf­fered un­told sor­row, for the per­spi­ra­tion rolled off his face in great drops. He was at last con­vinced that the Fa­ther in­tended to al­low nat­u­ral events to take their course; he was fully de­ter­mined to em­ploy none of his sov­er­eign power as the su­preme head of a uni­verse to save him­self.

132:5.13“And so, my friend, if you would be a faith­ful and just stew­ard of your large for­tune, be­fore God and in ser­vice to men, you must ap­prox­i­mately di­vide your wealth into these ten grand di­vi­sions, and then pro­ceed to ad­min­is­ter each por­tion in ac­cor­dance with the wise and hon­est in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the laws of jus­tice, eq­uity, fair­ness, and true ef­fi­ciency; al­beit, the God of heaven would not con­demn you if some­times you erred, in doubt­ful sit­u­a­tions, on the side of mer­ci­ful and un­selfish re­gard for the dis­tress of the suf­fer­ing vic­tims of the un­for­tu­nate cir­cum­stances of mor­tal life. When in hon­est doubt about the eq­uity and jus­tice of ma­te­rial sit­u­a­tions, let your de­ci­sions fa­vor those who are in need, fa­vor those who suf­fer the mis­for­tune of un­de­served hard­ships.”

145:3.7The sight of these af­flicted mor­tals, men, women, and chil­dren, suf­fer­ing in large mea­sure as a re­sult of the mis­takes and mis­deeds of his own trusted Sons of uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tion, pe­cu­liarly touched the hu­man heart of Je­sus and chal­lenged the di­vine mercy of this benev­o­lent Cre­ator Son. But Je­sus well knew he could never build an en­dur­ing spir­i­tual move­ment upon the foun­da­tion of purely ma­te­rial won­ders. It had been his con­sis­tent pol­icy to re­frain from ex­hibit­ing his cre­ator pre­rog­a­tives. Not since Cana had the super­nat­u­ral or mirac­u­lous at­tended his teach­ing; still, this af­flicted mul­ti­tude touched his sym­pa­thetic heart and might­ily ap­pealed to his un­der­stand­ing af­fec­tion.

9:1.8In ad­di­tion to this super­con­trol of en­ergy and things phys­i­cal, the In­fi­nite Spirit is su­perbly en­dowed with those at­tri­butes of pa­tience, mercy, and love which are so ex­qui­sitely re­vealed in his spir­i­tual min­istry. The Spirit is su­premely com­pe­tent to min­is­ter love and to over­shadow jus­tice with mercy. God the Spirit pos­sesses all the su­per­nal kind­ness and mer­ci­ful af­fec­tion of the Orig­i­nal and Eter­nal Son. The uni­verse of your ori­gin is be­ing forged out be­tween the anvil of jus­tice and the ham­mer of suf­fer­ing; but those who wield the ham­mer are the chil­dren of mercy, the spirit off­spring of the In­fi­nite Spirit.

94:8.3The orig­i­nal gospel of Gau­tama was based on the four no­ble truths:

94:8.41. The no­ble truths of suf­fer­ing.

94:8.52. The ori­gins of suf­fer­ing.

94:8.63. The de­struc­tion of suf­fer­ing.

94:8.74. The way to the de­struc­tion of suf­fer­ing.

94:8.8Closely linked to the doc­trine of suf­fer­ing and the es­cape there­from was the phi­los­o­phy of the Eight­fold Path: right views, as­pi­ra­tions, speech, con­duct, liveli­hood, ef­fort, mind­ful­ness, and con­tem­pla­tion. It was not Gau­tama’s in­ten­tion to at­tempt to de­stroy all ef­fort, de­sire, and af­fec­tion in the es­cape from suf­fer­ing; rather was his teach­ing de­signed to pic­ture to mor­tal man the fu­til­ity of pin­ning all hope and as­pi­ra­tions en­tirely on tem­po­ral goals and ma­te­rial ob­jec­tives. It was not so much that love of one’s fel­lows should be shunned as that the true be­liever should also look be­yond the as­so­ci­a­tions of this ma­te­rial world to the re­al­i­ties of the eter­nal fu­ture.

97:6.3Jeremiah also preached of the just and lov­ing God de­scribed by Isa­iah, declar­ing: “Yes, I have loved you with an ev­er­last­ing love; there­fore with lov­ing-kind­ness have I drawn you.” “For he does not af­flict will­ingly the chil­dren of men.”

166:4.3“All too long have your fa­thers be­lieved that pros­per­ity was the to­ken of di­vine ap­proval; that ad­ver­sity was the proof of God’s dis­plea­sure. I de­clare that such be­liefs are su­per­sti­tions. Do you not ob­serve that far greater num­bers of the poor joy­fully re­ceive the gospel and im­me­di­ately en­ter the king­dom? If riches ev­i­dence di­vine fa­vor, why do the rich so many times refuse to be­lieve this good news from heaven?

166:4.10“In the mat­ter of sick­ness and health, you should know that these bod­ily states are the re­sult of ma­te­rial causes; health is not the smile of heaven, nei­ther is af­flic­tion the frown of God.

59:6.1This pe­riod marks the end of piv­otal evo­lu­tion­ary de­vel­op­ment in ma­rine life and the open­ing of the tran­si­tion pe­riod lead­ing to the sub­se­quent ages of land an­i­mals.

59:6.2This age was one of great life im­pov­er­ish­ment. Thou­sands of ma­rine species per­ished, and life was hardly yet es­tab­lished on land. This was a time of bi­o­logic tribu­la­tion, the age when life nearly van­ished from the face of the earth and from the depths of the oceans. To­ward the close of the long ma­rine-life era there were more than one hun­dred thou­sand species of liv­ing things on earth. At the close of this pe­riod of tran­si­tion less than five hun­dred had sur­vived.

59:6.3The pe­cu­liar­i­ties of this new pe­riod were not due so much to the cool­ing of the earth’s crust or to the long ab­sence of vol­canic ac­tion as to an un­usual com­bi­na­tion of com­mon­place and pre-ex­ist­ing in­flu­ences—re­stric­tions of the seas and in­creas­ing el­e­va­tion of enor­mous land masses. The mild ma­rine cli­mate of for­mer times was dis­ap­pear­ing, and the harsher con­ti­nen­tal type of weather was fast de­vel­op­ing.

59:6.4170,000,000 years ago great evo­lu­tion­ary changes and ad­just­ments were tak­ing place over the en­tire face of the earth. Land was ris­ing all over the world as the ocean beds were sink­ing. Iso­lated moun­tain ridges ap­peared. The east­ern part of North Amer­ica was high above the sea; the west was slowly ris­ing. The con­ti­nents were cov­ered by great and small salt lakes and nu­mer­ous in­land seas which were con­nected with the oceans by nar­row straits. The strata of this tran­si­tion pe­riod vary in thick­ness from 1,000 to 7,000 feet.

59:6.5The earth’s crust folded ex­ten­sively dur­ing these land el­e­va­tions. This was a time of con­ti­nen­tal emer­gence ex­cept for the dis­ap­pear­ance of cer­tain land bridges, in­clud­ing the con­ti­nents which had so long con­nected South Amer­ica with Africa and North Amer­ica with Eu­rope.

59:6.6Grad­u­ally the in­land lakes and seas were dry­ing up all over the world. Iso­lated moun­tain and re­gional glaciers be­gan to ap­pear, es­pe­cially over the South­ern Hemi­sphere, and in many re­gions the glacial de­posit of these lo­cal ice for­ma­tions may be found even among some of the up­per and later coal de­posits. Two new cli­matic fac­tors ap­peared—glacia­tion and arid­ity. Many of the earth’s higher re­gions had be­come arid and bar­ren.

59:6.7Through­out these times of cli­matic change, great vari­a­tions also oc­curred in the land plants. The seed plants first ap­peared, and they af­forded a bet­ter food sup­ply for the sub­se­quently in­creased land-an­i­mal life. The in­sects un­der­went a rad­i­cal change. The rest­ing stages evolved to meet the de­mands of sus­pended an­i­ma­tion dur­ing win­ter and drought.

59:6.8Among the land an­i­mals the frogs reached their cli­max in the pre­ced­ing age and rapidly de­clined, but they sur­vived be­cause they could long live even in the dry­ing-up pools and ponds of these far-dis­tant and ex­tremely try­ing times. Dur­ing this de­clin­ing frog age, in Africa, the first step in the evo­lu­tion of the frog into the rep­tile oc­curred. And since the land masses were still con­nected, this pre­rep­til­ian crea­ture, an air breather, spread over all the world. By this time the at­mo­sphere had been so changed that it served ad­mirably to sup­port an­i­mal res­pi­ra­tion. It was soon af­ter the ar­rival of these pre­rep­til­ian frogs that North Amer­ica was tem­porar­ily iso­lated, cut off from Eu­rope, Asia, and South Amer­ica.

59:6.9The grad­ual cool­ing of the ocean wa­ters con­tributed much to the de­struc­tion of oceanic life. The ma­rine an­i­mals of those ages took tem­po­rary refuge in three fa­vor­able re­treats: the pres­ent Gulf of Mex­ico re­gion, the Ganges Bay of In­dia, and the Si­cil­ian Bay of the Med­i­ter­ra­nean basin. And it was from these three re­gions that the new ma­rine species, born to ad­ver­sity, later went forth to re­plen­ish the seas.

59:6.10160,000,000 years ago the land was largely cov­ered with veg­e­ta­tion adapted to sup­port land-an­i­mal life, and the at­mo­sphere had be­come ideal for an­i­mal res­pi­ra­tion. Thus ends the pe­riod of ma­rine-life cur­tail­ment and those test­ing times of bi­o­logic ad­ver­sity which elim­i­nated all forms of life ex­cept such as had sur­vival value, and which were there­fore en­ti­tled to func­tion as the an­ces­tors of the more rapidly de­vel­op­ing and highly dif­fer­en­ti­ated life of the en­su­ing ages of plan­e­tary evo­lu­tion.

59:6.11The end­ing of this pe­riod of bi­o­logic tribu­la­tion, known to your stu­dents as the Per­mian, also marks the end of the long Pa­le­o­zoic era, which cov­ers one quar­ter of the plan­e­tary his­tory, two hun­dred and fifty mil­lion years.

59:6.12The vast oceanic nurs­ery of life on Uran­tia has served its pur­pose. Dur­ing the long ages when the land was un­suited to sup­port life, be­fore the at­mo­sphere con­tained suf­fi­cient oxy­gen to sus­tain the higher land an­i­mals, the sea moth­ered and nur­tured the early life of the realm. Now the bi­o­logic im­por­tance of the sea pro­gres­sively di­min­ishes as the sec­ond stage of evo­lu­tion be­gins to un­fold on the land.

59:6.13[Pre­sented by a Life Car­rier of Neb­a­don, one of the orig­i­nal corps as­signed to Uran­tia.]

69:2.2Be­fore the dawn of early fru­gal­ity and prim­i­tive in­dus­try the lot of the av­er­age tribe was one of des­ti­tu­tion and real suf­fer­ing. Early man had to com­pete with the whole an­i­mal world for his food. Com­pe­ti­tion-grav­ity ever pulls man down to­ward the beast level; pov­erty is his nat­u­ral and tyran­ni­cal es­tate. Wealth is not a nat­u­ral gift; it re­sults from la­bor, knowl­edge, and or­ga­ni­za­tion.

89:0.2The sav­age was early pos­sessed with the no­tion that spir­its de­rive su­preme sat­is­fac­tion from the sight of hu­man mis­ery, suf­fer­ing, and hu­mil­i­a­tion. At first, man was only con­cerned with sins of com­mis­sion, but later he be­came ex­er­cised over sins of omis­sion. And the whole sub­se­quent sac­ri­fi­cial sys­tem grew up around these two ideas. This new rit­ual had to do with the ob­ser­vance of the pro­pi­ti­a­tion cer­e­monies of sac­ri­fice. Prim­i­tive man be­lieved that some­thing spe­cial must be done to win the fa­vor of the gods; only ad­vanced civ­i­liza­tion rec­og­nizes a con­sis­tently even-tem­pered and benev­o­lent God. Pro­pi­ti­a­tion was in­sur­ance against im­me­di­ate ill luck rather than in­vest­ment in fu­ture bliss. And the rit­u­als of avoid­ance, ex­or­cism, co­er­cion, and pro­pi­ti­a­tion all merge into one an­other.

90:3.41. Ghosts—di­rect spirit in­flu­ences. The ear­li­est hy­poth­e­sis ad­vanced in ex­pla­na­tion of dis­ease and death was that spir­its caused dis­ease by en­tic­ing the soul out of the body; if it failed to re­turn, death en­sued. The an­cients so feared the malev­o­lent ac­tion of dis­ease-pro­duc­ing ghosts that ail­ing in­di­vid­u­als would of­ten be de­serted with­out even food or wa­ter. Re­gard­less of the er­ro­neous ba­sis for these be­liefs, they did ef­fec­tively iso­late af­flicted in­di­vid­u­als and pre­vent the spread of con­ta­gious dis­ease.

90:3.52. Vi­o­lence—ob­vi­ous causes. The causes for some ac­ci­dents and deaths were so easy to iden­tify that they were early re­moved from the cat­e­gory of ghost ac­tion. Fa­tal­i­ties and wounds at­ten­dant upon war, an­i­mal com­bat, and other read­ily iden­ti­fi­able agen­cies were con­sid­ered as nat­u­ral oc­cur­rences. But it was long be­lieved that the spir­its were still re­spon­si­ble for de­layed heal­ing or for the in­fec­tion of wounds of even “nat­u­ral” cau­sa­tion. If no ob­serv­able nat­u­ral agent could be dis­cov­ered, the spirit ghosts were still held re­spon­si­ble for dis­ease and death.

90:3.6To­day, in Africa and else­where may be found prim­i­tive peo­ples who kill some­one ev­ery time a non­vi­o­lent death oc­curs. Their med­i­cine men in­di­cate the guilty par­ties. If a mother dies in child­birth, the child is im­me­di­ately stran­gled—a life for a life.

90:3.73. Magic—the in­flu­ence of en­e­mies. Much sick­ness was thought to be caused by be­witch­ment, the ac­tion of the evil eye and the magic point­ing bow. At one time it was re­ally dan­ger­ous to point a fin­ger at any­one; it is still re­garded as ill-man­nered to point. In cases of ob­scure dis­ease and death the an­cients would hold a for­mal in­quest, dis­sect the body, and set­tle upon some find­ing as the cause of death; oth­er­wise the death would be laid to witch­craft, thus ne­ces­si­tat­ing the ex­e­cu­tion of the witch re­spon­si­ble there­for. These an­cient coro­ner’s in­quests saved many a sup­posed witch’s life. Among some it was be­lieved that a tribesman could die as a re­sult of his own witch­craft, in which event no one was ac­cused.

90:3.84. Sin—pun­ish­ment for taboo vi­o­la­tion. In com­par­a­tively re­cent times it has been be­lieved that sick­ness is a pun­ish­ment for sin, per­sonal or racial. Among peo­ples travers­ing this level of evo­lu­tion the pre­vail­ing the­ory is that one can­not be af­flicted un­less one has vi­o­lated a taboo. To re­gard sick­ness and suf­fer­ing as “ar­rows of the Al­mighty within them” is typ­i­cal of such be­liefs. The Chi­nese and Mes­o­po­ta­mi­ans long re­garded dis­ease as the re­sult of the ac­tion of evil demons, al­though the Chaldeans also looked upon the stars as the cause of suf­fer­ing. This the­ory of dis­ease as a con­se­quence of di­vine wrath is still preva­lent among many re­put­edly civ­i­lized groups of Uran­tians.

90:3.95. Nat­u­ral cau­sa­tion. Man­kind has been very slow to learn the ma­te­rial se­crets of the in­ter­re­la­tion­ship of cause and ef­fect in the phys­i­cal do­mains of en­ergy, mat­ter, and life. The an­cient Greeks, hav­ing pre­served the tra­di­tions of Adam­son’s teach­ings, were among the first to rec­og­nize that all dis­ease is the re­sult of nat­u­ral causes. Slowly and cer­tainly the un­fold­ing of a sci­en­tific era is de­stroy­ing man’s age-old the­o­ries of sick­ness and death. Fever was one of the first hu­man ail­ments to be re­moved from the cat­e­gory of super­nat­u­ral dis­or­ders, and pro­gres­sively the era of sci­ence has bro­ken the fet­ters of ig­no­rance which so long im­pris­oned the hu­man mind. An un­der­stand­ing of old age and con­ta­gion is grad­u­ally oblit­er­at­ing man’s fear of ghosts, spir­its, and gods as the per­sonal per­pe­tra­tors of hu­man mis­ery and mor­tal suf­fer­ing.

100:2.7Je­sus por­trayed the pro­found surety of the God-know­ing mor­tal when he said: “To a God-know­ing king­dom be­liever, what does it mat­ter if all things earthly crash?” Tem­po­ral se­cu­ri­ties are vul­ner­a­ble, but spir­i­tual sureties are im­preg­nable. When the flood tides of hu­man ad­ver­sity, self­ish­ness, cru­elty, hate, mal­ice, and jeal­ousy beat about the mor­tal soul, you may rest in the as­sur­ance that there is one in­ner bas­tion, the citadel of the spirit, which is ab­so­lutely unas­sail­able; at least this is true of ev­ery hu­man be­ing who has ded­i­cated the keep­ing of his soul to the in­dwelling spirit of the eter­nal God.