From
The Problem of Pain
by C.S. Lewis (1898 - 1963) and
THE
HUMAN spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long
as all seems to be well with it. Now error and sin both have this property,
that the deeper they are the less their victim suspects their existence;
they are masked evil. Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil, every man knows
that something is wrong when he is being hurt.... And pain is not only
immediately recognizable evil, but evil impossible to ignore. We can rest
contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities; and anyone who has watched
gluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know
what they were eating, will admit that we can ignore even pleasure. But
pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures,
speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone
to rouse a deaf world....
