The Song of Solomon : and the Lamentations of Jeremiah

i. 8-II.] SIN AND SUFFERING 109
punishment of our folly. But here we are not beyond
physical causation, and the drift of thought is towards
holding the belief in anything more to be a simple
survival from primitive anthropomorphic ideas of nature,
a pure superstition. Is it a pure superstition ? It is
time we turned to another side of the question.
Every strong conviction that has obtained wide recognition,
however erroneous and mischievous it may
be, can be traced back to the abuse of some solid truth.
It is not the case that the universe is constructed with-
out any regard for moral laws. Even the natural
punishment of the violation of natural laws contains
a certain ethical element. Other considerations apart,
clearly it is wrong to injure one's health or endanger
one's life by rushing headlong against the constituted
order of the universe ; therefore the consequences of
such conduct may be taken as signs of its condemnation.
In the case of the sufferings of the Jews lamented
by our poet the calamities were not primarily of a
physical origin ; they grew out of human acts—the
accompaniments of the Chaldaean invasion. When we
come to the evolution of history we are introduced to
a whole world of moral forces that are not at work in
the material universe. Nebuchadnezzar did not know
that he was the instrument of a Higher Power for the
chastisement of Israel ; but the corruptions of the Jews,
so ruthlessly exposed by their prophets, had undermined
the national vigour which is the chief safeguard of a
state, as surely as at a later time the corruptions of
Rome opened her gates to devastating hosts of Goths
and Huns. May we not go further, and, passing beyond
the region of common; observation, discover richer in-
dications of the ethical meanings of events in the appli-
cation to them of a real faith in God ? It was his