No; that which makes sorrow, sorrow, and evil, evil, is
their naturalness; they well up from within, part of the very texture
of our consciousness. He knows you can never express them, for truly
to do that you would have to express and explain the entire world.
It is not easy then to interpret the evil and suffering which are not
external and temporary, but enduring and a part of the whole.
So the preacher is never dealing with plain or uncomplicated matters.
It is his business to perceive the mystery of iniquity in the saint
and to recognize the mystery of godliness in the sinner. It is his
business to revere the child and yet watch him that he may make a
man of him. He must say, so as to be understood, to those who balk at
discipline, and rail at self-repression, and resent pain: you have
not yet begun to live nor made the first step toward understanding the
universe and yourselves. To avoid discipline and to blench at pain is
to evade life. There are limitations, occasioned by the evil and the
suffering of the world, in whose repressions men find fulfillment.
When you are honest with yourself you will know what Dante meant when
he said:
"And thou shalt see those who
Contented are within the fire;
Because they hope to come,
When e'er it may be, to the blessed people."[1]
It is his business, also, to be the comrade of his peers, and yet
speak to them the truth in love; his task to understand the bitterness
and assuage the sorrows of old age.
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