Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/423

Rh your feeling—but you need have no doubt. Human life is sacred, and the fact that, even in this materialistic age, science is continually struggling to preserve and prolong it, shows—very beautifully, I think—how all things work together to fulﬁll the divine will.”

“Then you believe that the divine will delights in mere pain—mere meaningless animal suffering—for its own sake?”

“Surely not; but for the sake of the spiritual life that may be mysteriously wrung out of it.”

Justine bent her puzzled brows on him. “I could understand that view of moral suffering—or even of physical pain moderate enough to leave the mind clear, and to call forth qualities of endurance and renunciation. But where the body has been crushed to a pulp, and the mind is no more than a machine for the registering of sense-impressions of physical anguish, of what use can such suffering be to its owner—or to the divine will ?”

The young rector looked at her sadly, almost severely. “There, Miss Brent, we touch on inscrutable things, and human reason must leave the answer to faith.”

Justine pondered. “So that—one may say—Christianity recognizes no exceptions—?”

“None—none,” its authorized exponent pronounced emphatically. [ 407 ]