1. Eejotcing in hope ; patient in tribulation ; continuing stedfastly in prayer. At first sight they are three separate injunctions. Let some whose lot has fallen in pleasant places rejoice; let others whose lot is dark suffer patiently; let still others devote themselves to continual prayer. Or musing on the exhortations the idea may come to us that they are a descending scale.
If I have faltered more or less In my great task of happiness ; If I have moved among my race And shown no glorious morning face; If beams from happy human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies, Books, and my food, and summer rain Knocked on my sullen heart in vain: — Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take And stab my spirit broad awake; Or, Lord, if too obdurate I, Choose Thou, before that spirit die, A piercing pain, a killing sin, And to my dead heart run them inl^
And if pain fails to waken my heart fully to God, let me cling humbly and continuously to prayer. Let me not fail of prayer so that at the end my spirit may be attuned to God's, and my life be not in vain.
2. But St. Paul, when he wrote these words, addressed them to the Christians of the Koman Church for whom he foresaw perse-
^ B. L. Stevenson, Underwoods. 301
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cution in the near future, even if they were not suffering from it at this very time. And he would have them practise hope and patience and prayer in their persecution, and all at the same time.
^ The old physicians tell us of two antidotes against poison, the hot and the cold, and they dilate upon the special excellence of each of these ; in like manner the Apostle Paul gives us first the warm antidote, " rejoicing in hope," and then he gives us the cool antidote, " patient in tribulation." Either of these, or both together, will work wonderfully for the sustaining of the spirit ; but it is to be observed that neither of these remedies can be taken into the soul imless it is mixed with a draught of prayer. Joy and patience are curative essences, but they must be dropped into a glass full of supplication, and then they will be wonderfully efficient.^
3. St. Paul's primary meaning in the word which is translated tribulation in our English version was persecution. But let us take tribulation in its usual sense of every kind of trial through which a man may have to pass. With this meaning let us see the dependence between the clauses and the possibility of the Christian following the three injunctions at the same time.
(1) " Rejoice in hope ; be patient in tribulation." This is an utter impossibility to the man whose hope is of this world, and who looks for mere ordinary happiness. To him tribulation is the supreme obstacle to hope and joy. If he suffers he cannot be joyful ; he loses his hope. But for the man who is full of Christ's hope all is different. " Hope, which comes to all, outwears the accidents of life, and reaches with tremulous hand beyond the grave and death." The Christian's hope alters his idea of tribulation. Poverty, that is tribulation enough. But the monk embraces a life of poverty and self-denial of his own free-will.
Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room ; And hermits are contented with their cells.
Poverty has lost its grimness. It wears a smiling face. But, further, though the tribulation may remain very real the Christian accepts it — nay, welcomes it — as helping him on his way. And because of his great abiding hope the tribulation is dwarfed.
II People may lay down their lives with cheerfulness in the sure expectation of a blessed immortality ; but that is a different
^ 0. H. Spurgtion,
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aJEfair from giving up youth, with all its admirable pleasures, in the hope of a better quality of gruel in a more than problematical, nay, more than improbable, old age.^
(2) Now let us take the last two clauses together : " Continue Btedfastly in prayer ; be patient in tribulation." If we continue in prayer, does it follow that we shall be patient under trial ? E. J. Campbell, in A Faith for To-Day, says : " I well remember the curious feeling with which I once encountered a man who prayed long and earnestly for a certain academic distinction — a dis- tinction which could fall to one and one only. He was greatly chagrined and disappointed, and inclined to reproach God, when the honour went to another instead of himself. The earnestness of his prayers was unquestionable." But not so did St. Paul conceive of prayer. His model was the Master who in His agony said, " Thy will be done." So the Apostle would have these Eoman Christians put themselves on God's side in their praying.
^ And in all things he shall yield up his own will, saying and thinking in his heart, " Lord, I am as willing to be poor and without all those things of which Thou hast deprived me as I should be ready to be rich. Lord, if Thy will were so, and if in that state I might further Thy glory. It is not my natural wiU which must be done, but Thy will and the will of my spirit. Lord, I am thine, and I should be Thine as gladly in hell as in heaven, if in that way I could advance Thy glory. So then, 0 Lord, fulfil in me the good pleasure of Thy will." ^