^ Ruskin Sesame and Lilies ( Works, xviii. 54).
ST. LUKE XXI. 19 425
III.
The Discipline of the Soul.
"In your patience."
1. There is need of patience. See what a fearful campaign is mappecl out for these disciples of His. War and natural convul- sion in the earth; the machinery of civil government arrayed against the faith; domestic affection changed to gall; kindred turned into persecutors ; hatred from every quarter. But see the point on which Christ fixes the disciples* attention. It is not how all this persecution and sorrow are going to affect fortune and life and domestic relations. That needs no comment. It is not how the disciple is going to be able to break the force of these blows. He will not be able to break it. It may put an end to his life. But it is what the disciple is going to win and bring out of it all. Something is to be suffered. He does not conceal that ; but some- thing, and that the greatest thing, is to be won.
][ In the prefatory note of Christina's " Face of the Deep " she once more mentions her sister [Maria] though not by name : —
" A dear saint — I speak under correction of the Judgment of the Great Day, yet think not then to have my word corrected — this dear person once pointed out to me Patience as our lesson in the Book of Eevelation. Following the clue thus afforded me, I seek and hope to find Patience in this Book of awful import. Patience, at the least: and along with that grace whatever treasures beside God may vouchsafe me." ^
2. We are all placed differently because of different tempta- tions ; but, whatever our position, we can win something out of the circumstances of our life. In the Epistle to the Eomans it is said, " We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Yet, the Apostle adds, " In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." During life's battle we win that which will carry us into greater life beyond. So life may be looked on as a school where the young are trained. The exercises they are engaged in to-day they will never care for again, but meanwhile they are being shaped for the great world. These
* Mackenzie Bell, Christina Sossetti, 63.
426 THE WINNING OF THE SOUL
books and exercises will be simply waste paper by-and-by, but the strength and vigour of mind they generate will be always valuable. Life, then, is a great school in which there are no holidays, in which a man is always being shaped and trained for a greater life on the other side. Let a man go forth to business to confront some great temptation, and let him, in his integrity, by God's grace stand firm and strong — that man will go to bed at night having gained soul.
^ Astronomers tell us that one, at any rate, of the planets rolls on its orbit swathed in clouds and moisture. The world moves wrapped in a mist of tears. God alone knows them all, but each heart knows its own bitterness, and responds to the words, " Ye have need of patience." ^
3. The patience here spoken of is not merely submission, but active persistence, constancy. It is not enough that we shall stand and bear the pelting of the pitiless storm, unmurmuring and unbowed by it ; we are bound to go on our course, bearing up and steering right onwards. Persistent perseverance in the path that is marked out for us is especially the virtue that our Lord here enjoins. It is well to sit still unmurmuring ; it is better to march on undaunted and unswerving. And when we are able to keep straight~on the path which is marked out for us, and especi- ally on the path that leads us to God, notwithstanding all opposing voices, and all inward hindrances and reluctances ; when we are able to go to our tasks of whatever sort they be, and to do them, though our hearts are beating like sledge-hammers ; when we say to ourselves, " It does not matter a15iB"whether I am sad or glad, fresh or wearied, helped or hindered by circumstances, this one thing I do," then we have come to understand and to practise the grace that our Master here enjoins.
^ Wherever the flowers of the North are distributed they prevail ; they establish themselves in all climates, driving out the native flowers. On the other hand, the flowers of the South cannot establish themselves here. The explanation is that what the northern blooms have endured has made them robust and victorious. The Christian religion is one of endurance. This was first and pre-eminently true of our Lord. The first ages of the Church were ages of martyrdom. Ever since then the Christian
^ A. Maclaren.
ST. LUKE XXI. 19 427
faith has borne the weight of opposition and trial. As the glacial period has made the flowers hardy, so the discipline of suffering has made the Church of Christ the very home of patience, power, heroism. In this power of patience we win gujcsQuls — we realize ourselves, save ouiSelves everlastingly.^
^ When the Duke of Wellington saw a painting of Waterloo which represented him sitting on horseback with a watch in his . hand anxiously scanning the hour, the great soldier ridiculed the / picture, declared the posture false, and told the artist to paint the / watch out. No battle is won with a watch in our palm. The victory over our own nature and the victory that overcometh the world are gained in patient faith and endeavour.