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CHAPTER VI
SUFFERING
“The whole creation groaneth and travaileth . . . together.”
Suffering seems a very much wider
fact than sin. What bewilders us most
in it, I suppose, is its extension over the
whole conscious world independently of
goodness or badness. It seems as if it
followed from any independence, any
separateness or self-assertion in things.
If things apparently indifferent to one
another’s interests assert themselves in
the same world, there must be conflict,
and, with consciousness, suffering.
Religious faith does not seem to promise exemption from suffering. On the contrary, it almost seems to suggest