SUFFERING by Christian Advocate

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 29, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 29.

SUFFERING.

By Christian Advocate

THE price of perfection in this world is suffering. The forms of suffering that may be endured are infinite in number and diversity. Few, indeed, pass through life without at some time drinking its bitterest cup. For some it is filled again and again after once they have drained it. By unmerciful disaster followed fast, and followed faster, they are made to pass through the cycle of suffering, and sit with Job in ashes, comfortless, and cursing the day of their birth. Even these, holding fast and denying not their integrity, come forth at last refined from the fire.

In our blindness we call pleasure good and pain evil, but when our vision has been purified by suffering, we learn that pain also is good and that pleasure is often evil. When we are wise enough we give God thanks for the lesson he has taught us through hardship and loss and bereavement and disappointment and pain and poverty, we find that our most trying and painful experiences are richest in the fruits of knowledge and power and joy.

The finer the porcelain the higher the degree of heat required to burn it. The harder the stone the longer and more difficult the process of polishing it. The rough diamond is cemented to a handle called a "dop," leaving the part exposed which is to be removed to form one facet. The projecting portion is then removed by attrition against another diamond similarly set in a handle, or by means of diamond dust and oil upon a disk, wheel, or wire, according to circumstances. Many and many a man and woman finds himself and herself cemented by circumstances into a "dop," and held against the wheel while life is ground away. Then the position is changed, perhaps, and another facet polished. By and by it may be, he is properly mounted, or he is one of the ten thousand polished jewels that never receive any mounting, but a polished jewel, nevertheless, waiting its final glorious setting.

There is positive gain in some kinds of loss. The solid block of fine marble loses certain portions of its mass, and a statue stands forth, multiplying the value of the original mass a thousand-fold. The jewel suffers loss in being engraved. Its very heart feels the steely point of the graver as the image or inscription that is to endure forever is made upon it by the removal of its integral substance. But its intrinsic value is immeasurably enhanced.

What is needed most by those passing through the furnace, held to the polishing-wheel, under the chisel of the great Master, under the point of the graver, is steady clinging to the right, unbending tenacity of high purpose, and fidelity to trust, even unto death.