PATIENCE IN CHRISTIAN LIFE.
By J. M. Buckley, D. D.
IN Christian life the triumphs of steady patience have been at once beautiful and enduring. The church has achieved some of its most brilliant victories in prison, at the stake, and on the scaffold. Not on fields covered with a cloth of gold have our brave heroes won their present laurels. Their most memorable work, that which has projected itself farthest into the future, has been performed against terrible odds, when the world was against them, and supposed them and their cause doomed to speedy annihilation. Martin Luther was at his best when Leo X. excommunicated him. His first work was done in the concealment of his dark little room in the Wartburg Castle. John Wesley's moment of loftiest triumph was when he was not permitted to preach in the little Epworth church, but dared to proclaim the truth from his father's tombstone, just outside the church door. In the time of apostolic planting and cultivating of Christianity, the very pauses of the good cause were full of hope and courage. Peter in prison, Paul and Silas in bonds and the dungeon, were heroes in triumphant battle-fields. They were known far and wide to be suffering, and not only was prayer offered for them by the whole body of believers, but the very picture of such amazing suffering was a more eloquent sermon than any ever spoken by prophet or apostle. The church of all later periods has been the richer for such early experiences. Without the endurance of those ten persecutions the early Christians would never have become the models which they have proven themselves to be—the types of heroic patience, ready for the hard task of standing still and receiving the heavy blows. The large place which our disappointments and bereavements really occupy in Christian life is but little understood. Let any believer look back upon the forces which, in the end, have produced his greatest trust and highest joy. He does not need long to discover that his strength has come from the blows he has received. Some personal hope has been blasted, some cherished plan has fallen to pieces, some long and tedious illness has come in the midst of his activity, and so he has been compelled to pause and listen to the voice of duty, and see in the sorrow of the hour that God has meant only the joy of all the later hours. Slow pupils are we. We like the easy lessons of the sunshine and the summer the best, little dreaming that they are the least forceful and instructive of all we ever learn. One of the reasons why we do not see the training and the power of those darkest hours of the past, is that we do not stop long enough to study their great purpose. The experiences of God's children are not accidents. The moment one commits his ways to God is the beginning of a new career. Whatever happens, from whatever cause, is seen by him who notes every falling sparrow. We must cling to the comfort that God watches every step, and that he encamps about those who trust him. We dwell beneath the folds of his pavilion. Then whatever sorrow or joy may come is either caused or permitted by him who seeth in secret and rewardeth openly. Shall we any longer select for ourselves and for those we love, and for the pure cause of the truth, only the pleasant and the comfortable? No; we will choose nothing for ourselves—nothing but what he sends. If his gifts are now and then thorny paths or bitter tears, we will take them, and try to learn calmness while we suffer. The bright, rewarding sunlight will come in his time. So was it with John, who was in exile "for the kingdom and patience of Jesus." Patience may be only a rock of lonely exile in mid-sea, but it becomes more than that to the banished and beloved disciple—the place where Heaven is most clearly revealed to his longing eyes.