No one can seriously deny that sin brings suffering into human experience; this fact is too clearly seen in the suffering of the criminal, the debauchee, the inebriate, and others whom mankind in general look upon as having transgressed some special law. The statement, however, that all suffering is directly or indirectly the result of sin, does not meet with such ready acceptance.
We are all familiar with the Christian of earnest intent who cannot understand why he is suffering from sickness or some other form of discord, when all about him flagrant sinners are enjoying health and prosperity. Many who have had such misgivings have been helped by the words of the psalmist, who also saw the ungodly prosper in the world and was greatly puzzled thereby until he "went into the sanctuary of God,"— rose to the height of spiritual perception where he could see the "slippery places" on which the wicked stand, could discern the self-destroying nature of sin. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 5) we have Mrs. Eddy's helpful reference to a passage in another psalm: "Sinners flourish 'like a green bay tree; ' but, looking farther, the psalmist could see their end,—the destruction of sin through suffering."
So much for the willful sinner,— but how about the person who is earnestly striving to consecrate his life to God and is nevertheless a chronic sufferer? "What great sin have I committed," he asks, "that I should be punished in this way?"
