p. 123 | Sanctified Affliction

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 5, 1861

Sanctified Affliction.

DURING the siege of Sebastopol, a Russian shell buried itself in the side of a hill, without the city, and opened a spring. A little fountain bubbled forth where the cannon shot had fallen, and during the remainder of the siege afforded to the thirsty troops who were stationed in that vicinity an abundant supply of pure, cold water. Thus the missile of death from an enemy, under the direction of an overruling Providence, proved an almoner of life to the parched and weary soldiery of the allies.

So it is often with afflictions, which spring not out of the ground, but are sent down by the Father of Lights, that we may be made partakers of his holiness. They may come, as if from an enemy, in the various forms of forked lightning, the devastating tornado, the devouring fire, the fell swoop of disease, the loss of property, the death of those we love and cherish most. Indeed, no one of such calamities can be construed as a judicial visitation, without trenching upon the prerogatives of Jehovah. But each has its blessings in disguise, from that God who hides himself in the works of nature in his daily providence, and in the on-goings of his grace. Be stricken as we may, let our spirits be dried up, so that like Job, we may say, "How long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone, till I swallow down my spittle?" yet the eye of a normal faith will not fail to detect the out-gushings of the fountain of life, in the midst of all these apparently unpropitious events. A Christian alchemy will change the flood of death to the tide of a new life; the flame of fire to the lamp of a truer life; the pestilential vapor to the breath of a diviner life.

"There are sufferings," eloquently says Frederika Bremer, "sufferings to the death which are not bitter, which possess their own great, their marvelous enjoyment." And Lady Ravenscourt, in her letters—beautifully referring to the providence of God—remarks, "He has not suffered you to walk smoothly down the stream of time; but by large and rough billows has dashed you on the promises."

And how does the heart of the experienced Christian respond to the sentiments of these gifted minds? It is the peculiar privilege of the child of God, while he sits enveloped with the flowering branches of the willow and the cypress, to look through the leaflet interstices to the sunshine around, or to the sparkling stars above him. It is the privilege of the children of God, in their loneliest moments and in their saddest hours, to receive visits of the angels, who are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation. Joy and sorrow are wisely commingled in life, blending the light and shade most skillfully.—Still Hour.