“Is it not possible to believe,” I said, “that all experience may be good for us, however harsh it seems?”

“No rational man can think that,” said Father Payne.  “Suffering is not good for people if it is severe and protracted.  I have seen many natures go utterly to pieces under it.”

“What do you believe, then?” I said.

“Of course the only obvious explanation,” said Father Payne, “is that suffering, misery, evil, disaster, disease do not come from God at all; that He is the giver of health and joy and light and happiness; that He gives us all He can, and spares us all He can; but that there is a great enemy in the world, whom He cannot instantly conquer; that He is doing all He can to shield us, and to repair the harm that befalls us—­that we can make common cause with Him, and pity Him for His thwarted plans, His endless disappointments, His innumerable failures, His grievous sufferings.  It would be easy to love God if He were like that—­yet who dares to say it or to teach it?  It is the dreadful doctrine of His Omnipotence that ruins everything.  I cannot hold any communication with Omnipotence—­it is a consuming fire; but if I could know that God was strong and patient and diligent, but not all-powerful or all-knowing, then I could commune with Him.  If, when some evil mishap overtakes me, I could say to Him, ’Come, help me, console me, show me how to mend this, give me all the comfort you can,’ then I could turn to Him in love and trust, so long as I could feel that He did not wish the disaster to happen to me but could not ward it off, and was as miserable as myself that it had happened.  Not so miserable, of course, because He has waited so long, suffered so much, and can discern so bright and distant a hope.  Then, too, I might feel that death was perhaps our escape from many kinds of evil, and that I should be clasped to His heart for awhile, even though He sent me out again to fight His battles.  That would evoke all my love and energy and courage, because I could feel that I could give Him my help; but if He is Almighty, and could have avoided all the sorrow and pain, then I am simply bewildered and frightened, because I can predicate nothing about Him.”

“Is not that the idea which Christianity aims at?” I said.

“Yes,” he said; “the suffering Saviour, who can resist evil and amend it, but cannot instantly subdue it; but, even so, it seems to set up two Gods for one.  The mind cannot really identify the Saviour with the Almighty Designer of the Universe.  But the thought of the Saviour does interpret the sense of God’s failure and suffering, does bring it all nearer to the heart.  But if there is Omnipotence behind, it all falls to the ground again—­at least it does for me.  I cannot pray to Omnipotence and Omniscience, because it is useless to do so.  The limited and the unlimited cannot join hands.  I must, if I am to believe in God, believe in Him as a warrior arriving on a