Excerpt from The Anglican Pulpit Library, Vol. 8: Sermons, Outlines and Illustrations for Sundays and Holy Days

And yet, what is that cry which is going u from the world, a dull inarticulate wailing of aimless effort, the who e creation groaning and travailing in pain together -the green grass as it waves its fresh beauty in the air dowered with life, yet knows the scorching sun, the withering blight, the day's existence, and the morrow's oven. The s arrow which waits upon God, the fowls of the air, the beadsmen Of Igis royal bounty, they, too, know the glaring heat, they fall to the ground, they know pain and death. Yes, man himself, with his grand history and great possibilities, he, too, displays an undertone of sorrow which too Often is the expression most vividly stamped on his existence. The prevalence Of suicide is more than a mere passing phenomenon: it means that men find life unbearable, that they prefer to cast back their very existence into the face of Him who gave it rather than meet the duties and the sorrows which lie before them. It is the echo of the wail of Greek tragedy: 'not to be born is the best thing that can happen to a man, or, failing that, to go as quickly as possible back from whence it came.' Life alone, life unilluminated, unrelieved, unspiritualised, it may be a doubtful blessing after all. And so it was just when men had found this out most bitterly and most keenly, when emperors were Offering a re ward to any one who would invent a new pleasure, when Stoics were asserting that death was the only way of escape from the misery of life; it was then that a new revelation burst upon the world from the manger Of Bethlehem. God came to make life a richer blessing, a truer happiness, to make life, which alone could be called life, possible. He came in His incarnation with that proclamation to which the suffering world eagerly clings: 'i am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.' Man might claim something more than a mere Share in the struggle for exist ence, something more than a mere contribution to the winding up of the ages: he could claim life in its highest form, supernatural life, by the power and presence of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.