But a better interpretation of human life’s mystery has been given.  Jesus looked over its apparent desolation and confusion and poured upon it divine light.  He taught that it is not the Father’s will that even one should perish.  Men are not being ground in an infinite mill, but they are being refined and purified by the only processes which will develop in them both strength and beauty.  Out of confusion harmony will come, and out of the battle of the elements peace will dawn at last.

To those who know that pain and sorrow are ministers of strength and sympathy, that by them narrow horizons are widened and deserts made to blossom, human life does not seem so confused and terrible as it has sometimes been pictured.  Jesus makes evident the upward movement of the race, and shows, let me repeat, that it is “under the eye and in the strength of God.”  He was made perfect through suffering.  The thorns on His brow tell their own pathetic story.  The passion vine above His head, and beneath His feet, indicate that even His sufferings are not without a purpose of blessing, and therefore are fully justified.

And now we approach the saddest of all the dark experiences through which the soul passes,—­the mystery of sin.  Of its enormity I have already spoken; but what about its origin, its uses, and its continuance?  The question of its origin Jesus does not even mention.  It is not recognized as having any uses.  It may be made an occasion of good, but it is never ordained in order that good may come.  Hardly any other subject occupies so large a place in the teachings of Jesus.  It was said of Him, “His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins;” and of Him Paul wrote, “God commendeth His love toward us in that when we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”

The terrible blight of moral evil, whatever its genesis, cannot be explained away.  Jesus passed by all other questions and devoted the largest part of His ministry, as a teacher, to showing how the soul may escape from the power, and be delivered from the bondage, of sin.  This is the practical problem.  As one surveys the race the imperative inquiry concerns deliverance.  What light does Jesus shed upon this mystery?  He shows that sin is an incident in the ascent of the soul, and not an end; that it is hateful and unnatural; and that all the strength and goodness of God are pledged to its removal.  The soul will be allowed to be in bondage only so long as is necessary for its complete emancipation.  Moral evil is tolerated at all not because it is a good in itself, but in order that the soul may learn that its safety and strength are to be found only in conformity to the will of God.