Whatever may be said of the doctrine of the Fall, belief in it is indeed “a condition of hope,”[188] and the belief and the hope both spring from their faith in God as Creator and Governor of the race, which characterised the Hebrew prophets. Wherever that faith is lively, it not only sustains man amid the sufferings of life, but it nerves him to struggle with physical and moral evil to vanquish it. The purer the faith the more resolute is the struggle; the holier the Deity becomes to the thought of man the stronger becomes his conviction that life is a blessing, and that all its struggles may conduce to peace. There is an instinct which seems to suggest that there are worse things than troubles, and that they may be blessings of no mean quality after all. Christianity has made the startling revelation that suffering is not peculiar to man, as the consequence of his perversity in traversing the Divine order; for not only is Christ presented to us as the greatest sufferer, but in Him God the highest and the holiest is disclosed as involved in it, and as taking upon Himself the responsibilities and the sufferings which our sin and need entail. But if in Christ there is revealed the greatest sufferer, it is as one whose suffering is not in vain. By suffering He conquers that which has produced it; by enduring suffering He ends it; and He reigns and finds His blessedness in making us partakers of His victory over it. So again Christianity, unlike other religions which promise salvation _from_ suffering, offers salvation _through_ suffering. It alone asserts the utility of suffering; others regard it as evil, Christianity as evil overruled for good. Others reckon it as a mere loss or waste, Christianity as something that may be turned to profit as the condition and preparation for joy. Joy in the Christian conception is not the reward of suffering, nor compensation for suffering, but the fruit and issue of suffering which leads to it, as travail leads to birth. So instead of evading or ignoring it, Christ would have us recognise and acquiesce in it, and even be thankful for it, as necessary not for our personal profit, but for the gain of mankind. By His sufferings we are healed, and through our sufferings we fill up what remains of His for the redemption of the world. Only through “the long travail of ages yet to be” will there be born in the evolution of God’s redemptive purpose that better race from which all suffering shall have passed away, because disobedience will have had an end. Fellowship in Christ’s sufferings has thus transfigured the afflictions of all who believe in Him. Unlike the Indian, tortured by endless change, without any evolution from low to higher, from evil or imperfect to what is good and perfect, the Christian can endure suffering not only patiently but also cheerfully, knowing that he is suffering not just for his own sake, but that in ways mysterious he is