XIX
But it is the old story: we do not believe it. It is too good to be true, so we put it away from us. In a world where the material is so pressing we use only material measures, and bow only to material force.
So be it! That is apparently as far as our race-development takes us. It takes us into suffering, but not out of it. Individuals have come into it and worked their way out again; but most of us can go no faster than the crowd. In that case we must suffer. In a terrible crisis in his history, and after many sins, David was able to write these words: "I sought the Lord ... and He delivered me out of all my fears." It is the royal avenue, and it is open to anyone. And yet if we do not take it, it still does not follow that all is lost.
Of the world as it is the outstanding fact is the necessity for struggle. Struggle may conceivably enter into every other world. There is something in us which requires it, which craves for it. A static heaven in which all is won and there is nothing forevermore but to enjoy has never made much appeal to us. If eternal life means eternal growth we shall always have something with which to strive, since growth means overcoming.
While sorry, then, that we have not released ourselves to a greater degree than we have, we may take heart of grace from what we have achieved. We must simply struggle on. Struggle will continue to make and shape us. Whether our problems spring from a world of matter, from a world of men, or from ourselves, their solving brings us a fuller grasp of truth. The progress may be slow but it is progress. Hardship by hardship, task by task, failure by failure, conquest by conquest, we pull ourselves up a little higher in the scale. Some day we shall see in the Universal all that we have been looking for, and be delivered out of all our fears.