% Nothing can have a more tranquillizing effect upon us in this world than the frequent consideration of the afflictions, necessities, contempt, calumnies, insults, and humiliations which our Lord suffered from His birth to His most painful death. When we contemplate such a weight of bitterness as this, are we not wrong in giving to the trifling misfortunes which befall us even the names of adversities and injuries ? Are we not ashamed to ask a share of His Divine patience to help us to bear such trifles as these, seeing that the smallest modicum of moderation and humility would suffice to make us bear calmly the insults offered to us ? ^
^ Before the apotheosis of the cross, suffering was a curse from which man fled ; now it becomes a purification of the soul, a sacred trial sent by Eternal Love, a Divine dispensation meant to sanctify and ennoble us, an acceptable aid to faith, a strano-e initiation into happiness. 0 power of belief! — All remains the same, and yet all is changed. A new certitude arises to deny * The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales, 172.
374 THE BROOK IN THE WAY
the apparent and the tan;j;ible ; it pierces through the mystery of things, it places an invisible Father behind visible nature, it shows us joy shining through tears, and makes of pain the beginning of joy. And so, for those who have believed, the tomb becomes heaven, and on the funeral pyre of life they sing the hosanna of immortality ; a sacred madness has renewed the face of the world for them, and when they wish to explain what they feel, their ecstasy makes them incomprehensible ; they speak with tongues. A wild intoxication of self-sacrifice, contempt for death, tlie thirst for eternity, the delirium of love — these are what the unalterable gentleness of the Crucified has had power to bring forth. By His pardon of His executioners, and by that unconquerable sense in Him of an indissoluble union with God, Jesus, on His cross, kindled an inextinguishable fire and revolutionized the world.^
Christ's Heart was wrung for me, if mine is sore ; And if my feet are weary. His have bled; He had no place wherein to lay His Head; If I am burdened, He was burdened more. The cup I drink. He drank of long before; He felt the unuttered anguish which I dread; He hungered who the hungry thousands fed. And thirsted who the world's refreshment bore. If grief be such a looking-glass as shows
Christ's Face and man's in some sort made alike, Then grief is pleasure with a subtle taste : Wherefore should any fret or faint or haste? Grief is not grievous to a soul that knows
Christ comes, — and listens for that hour to strike.*
XL
The Common Brook.
" He shall drink of the brook in the way." It is wonderful to think of the spiritual life of Jesus nourislied by the same means of grace as are available for us all. At every point in Christ's experience there was a sense of obstacle and resistance. Salvation for Him was every day a task entailing agony. But always He bore down the resistance, and, welcoming the reliefs that were
1 JmieVs Journal, (trans, by Mrs. Humphry Ward), 168. •OhmliuaG. RoswcUi, Verses, 37.
PSALM ex. 7 375
given Him by God, He passed on with lifted head to the burden and the battle of the new day, sure of Himself, sure of His cause, very sure of God and victory. " True souls always are hilarious." Think of Him when the disciples came back from their first excursion, elated, as small men will be, by their minute successes ; their ministry, one may suppose, had scarcely drawn attention in the single province of Galilee, and He had taken on Himself the redemption of the world. But hear His comment, " When you were away I was watching Satan and he was fallen " (an imperfect tense followed by an aorist). The most meagre encourage- ment, the first faint effort of a soul to free itself, spoke home to His heart, and He drew water with joy out of the wells of salvation.
We do not find that one innocent pleasure which came " in the way " to Jesus was sourly or wilfully refused by Him. He would leave a feast at once, if called by Jairus to a sick-bed ; but He would not refuse the feast of His friends in Bethany, though He knew that He was reproached for eating and drinking, and though He felt His death to be so near that the ointment then poured upon Him would go with Him to His burial. How does His example affect us ? We may have to refuse pleasures because we are weak, because temptations must be avoided, because we have no longer any choice except to cripple our life, or, having two feet, to be cast into hell fire ; but this is not a thing to boast of. Or, like St. Paul, we may deny ourselves for our weak brother's sake, which is an honour, and a Christ-like thing ; but the rule, apart from special cases, is that the best and truest life is such as welcomes and is refreshed by all simple pleasures which sparkle and sing by our life's path, which do not require us to leave the road of duty that we may drink of them.