Weak minds, like the friends who tried to comfort Job,
have often taken the contrary view and have insisted that
suffering is always and only the consequence of demerit.-
But anyone able to look squarely at facts, like Job himself,
has seen that this is not true, and has given up trying to
account for existing conditions except by falling back on
faith in a higher power, and "believing where he cannot
see" "that good shall somehow be the final goal of ill." It
should be said, however, that as the wrongdoer stands a
little nearer to the wrong than anybody else he ia some-
what more likely to be hit by the consequences. In the
long run and on the average this is true. Were it not true,
no progress would be made and nature would be convicted
not only of brutality but of incompetence. This she has
never been. Sermons from the text, "The wages of sin is
death," can be based on facts as well as on Scripture. Be-
cause the innocent often suffer, no one need to conclude that



A LAY SERMON 363

It is a matter of indifference wlietlier or not he is innocent.
