"
Happily the sentiment of the Hymn did not make much impression on me. It
is a great boon to children that sometimes they are not very thoughtful.
I wonder if Robert Browning ever learned such Hymns when a child. If he
did, he must later have had a revival of more hopeful ideas. He could
write that couplet that has been so often repeated:
"God's in His heaven;
All's right with the world."
But all is not right with the world if millions and millions of our
fellow creatures are in endless torment, and other millions on their
way. I fear Browning's words are often repeated with a glib optimism.
All is right with the world, or all will be right, when the whole race
is redeemed from suffering and sin; not otherwise. But the love and
power of God are equal to the task.
THE SWEEP OF THE INFINITE MIND.
I have sometimes on a sweet and hallowed night watched the moon riding
so peacefully through the white clouds; and it did seem to me that if
there is suffering anywhere, God has a time and a plan for relieving it.
I could not think of Him as being happy otherwise. But if in the sweep
of the infinite Mind he descries, even in some far off age, the entire
passing away of sin and suffering, I can imagine Him as being perfectly
happy. All events being equally present to Him, anticipation may be very
much the same as reality.
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