Christian Calmness

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 30, 1873

Christian Calmness.

It were worth one’s while to be a Quaker, perhaps, just for the sweet serenity which characterizes the sect. We know a score of Quaker matrons, any of whom would be a living sermon in a score of homes we could name—a living sermon, with calmness as a text. Dear, good, Quaker mothers—would there were more such!

Calmness and equanimity ought to be a part of every one’s religion, even as it is a part of the Quakers. “I dare no more fret,” said John Wesley, “than to curse and swear.” One who knew him so well said that he never saw him low spirited or fretful in his life. He could not endure the society of people who were of this habit. He says of them: “To have persons at my ears murmuring and fretting at everything, is like tearing the flesh from my bones. By the grace of God I am discontented at nothing. I see God sitting on the throne, and ruling all things.”

If every one was of John Wesley’s spirit, it would revolutionize the world. Christians lose all their wayside comforts, and dishonor the Master by their fretfulness over little troubles. Some who can bear the great sorrows of life with a martyr’s faith and patience, are utterly overthrown by the breaking of a vase. We have seen men in a fever of impatience, even anger, over the loss of a shirt-button, the mislaying of a cane, or fifteen minutes’ delay of dinner, who have stood by the graves of the dear ones gone, and made no sign.