When man is ready to receive the verification of the immortality he hopes for, but for which he has as yet no scientific evidence, we may be sure it will be given to him. Signs are not wanting that this almost universal craving of the human race is not to remain for ever unsatisfied. Meanwhile, can we not watch one hour? The day is certain when we shall all in our own persons receive con[47]firmation of the truth of our apprehensive hope for immortal life. Can we not, then, in acquiescence with the Will of God, which all experience teaches us to be a directing Will for Good, rest content in the belief that because evidence of a truth is never withheld from those capable of understanding it, so we, when we are ready for a verification of this desire of the soul, may be given the evidence for which we hope? [48] III THE ALCHEMY OF LOVE One of the most perplexing and saddening problems of life, which presents itself in mournful frequency to thoughtful minds, is that of so-called unmerited suffering. This seeming injustice, co-operative throughout Nature with the struggle for existence, is a stumbling-block to many thinkers to whom the creed of propitiation for sin and suffering in the person and mission of Christ, as well as those dicta of Natural Science which declare the sacrifice of the weak and helpless to be a necessary accompaniment of evolutionary life, appear rather as different aspects of vicarious suffering than as reconciliating explanations of its compatibility with the supreme government of a God of Love. Is it not the fact that a large propor[49]tion of our trouble and perplexity concerning certain problems of spiritual morality has origin in our resentment at the seeming injustice of the operation of the law of suffering? In grief and sadness of heart we cry out against the infliction of sorrow and pain upon those who are made to suffer vicariously for the wrong-doing of others. Surely a God who wreaks vengeance for one man's sin upon his innocent children cannot be a God of Justice! Surely the dealing out of madness as the reward for superlative endeavour, strenuous idealism of thought, and consistent self-denial, the inflicting upon finely organised sensitive temperaments a capacity to suffer in a measure scarcely appreciable by coarser natures, cannot be by the direction of a God of Love! When we behold the visitation of such mental and physical torture upon pure and upright men and women, whose conduct seems utterly undeserving of punishment, we ask ourselves if such things can be in accord with the supreme government of Divine[50] Love. Our hospitals and asylums are recruited largely from the ranks of those who suffer from the wrong-doing of others. Inherited disease and tainted environment set from birth a handicap tantamount to foredoomed life-failure upon the children of the multiplied unfit, whose continued tenancy of the earth constitutes a deterring factor in progressive life.