Personal Hardships

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 3, 1864

Personal Hardships.

WHOEVER will trace the history of human success, will wonder to find the way to eminence so generally a rugged, up-hill path; and this is so, whatever the department of effort, whether literary, religious, political, or philanthropic. How beset is this path with chasms, morasses, deep streams and jungles! The world never makes a greater mistake than when it writes the path of genius a painless one. The superficial think genius but an express train to success, in which the illustrious did but take their seat, with a through ticket in their pocket. But they who have better read the history of greatness, have learned that genius is mainly the power of work. Did we sketch it, we should see a strong form, with muscles, and nerves, and burning eye. See him there grappling with the difficulties of the way. His progress is very often a dead climb up steeps which other men dare not assay. See him grasp rocks, twigs, and roots; see where he puts his foot; see the strain of all the man, and the fiery purpose of the soul to overcome the hardships of his lot, and to conquer success by the sheer power of effort. Is it not a marvel that man, the greatest of creatures, must begin his existence in the greatest weakness and dependence? The horse comes to perfection of muscle and movement as a birthright. But what will man become if left to mere natural development? What does he know but by attention, imitation and study? What can you make of him, until he is jostled from the cradle of his ease by some hardship or rudeness? Hardship is at once the price and the birth-pang of that which Heaven values.

So much is this the case, that one might almost venture to graduate successes by their cost. A wild rose will grow anywhere. It needs no culture, no care; it will blossom along the roadside. The world is full of such flowers; but what is the wild rose? Pluck it; smell it; look at it. It is poor, colorless, odorless. It costs nothing; it is worth nothing. But you hand me an exquisite rose-bud. What fragrance, what richness of color, what matchless beauty! Where did you get it? Tell me its history. It is one of a hundred seedlings which struck root in your conservatory. The gardener planted them, watered them, defended them from insect marauders; and out of a hundred he rejected wisely ninety and nine as common and comparatively worthless. That one rose, then, is the result of skill, time, and painstaking.

And we have heard of a gardener's putting a choice plant away in the dark, starving it of all light and cheerfulness, until every leaf fell off, and it seemed about to die; and all this severity of treatment was only that afterward, when the light was admitted, the plant might bring forth a blossom of such rare, deep coloring as could only come from such dark days.

So everywhere in human experience, as frequently in nature, hardship is the vestibule of the highest success. That magnificent oak was detained twenty years in its upward growth, while its roots took a great turn around a boulder by which the tree was anchored to withstand the storms of centuries.

I see a pearl upon your bosom. What is it? It is the result of suffering in the oyster. It came of disease and hardship. I see a man; he is a pearl among men. Shall I tell you his history? He is born not only of flesh and blood, but of crosses and disappointments, and he has struggled to his present position by a succession of victories over hardship and suffering. This discipline has made him what he is.

Hence it is that patience is the greatest of virtues, since it vanquishes hardship. This is the principle which says in reference to every honest pursuit, "I bide my time." Patience is faith in truth, in effort, in great laws leading on to success. It is the principle which the sapling oak unconsciously illustrates as it grows side by side with the sunflower. The ephemeral plant will out-top it, stretching out its great arms in derision, and laughing with its jolly round face at the poor creeping oak. But that oak will attend the funeral of generations of sunflowers, drawing its very life from the loam which constitutes their grave.

Patience with ourselves, patience with others, patience with God and with his providence—this is the secret of success. Patience lives in the conviction that truth and right are strong and will yet have their day.

It is no less sure that wrong is weak, and that its sun will by and by go down in a starless night. It remembers the old story of Bessus and the birds' nest. The innocent chatter of the birds under his window reminded him of the murder of his father, a crime which he had committed secretly, and of which he was never suspected till in his anger he tore down the nest. If we can only be patient, we shall overcome. Difficulties will disappear, and mysteries solve themselves; the right will triumph in God's full time. The mill of God grinds too slowly for us all. We know not how to wait the "due time" of Providence in the great interests of the world, and in the interior struggles of the soul. But if we would conquer, we must struggle and wait.—N. Y. Independent.