I trust I have succeeded in impressing upon you the difference between Christian resignation and mere hardihood, or indifference.Resignation is born of discipline, and lives only in a truly religious soul.We have seen that it is not incompatible with tenderness; nay, it is more valuable, because it springs up in natures that have thus suffered and wept.To see them become calm and pass with unfaltering step through the valley of affliction, when, but now, they shrunk from it, is a proof that God indeed has strengthened them, and that they have had communion with him.
The unbeliever's stubbornness may endure to the end, but no human power could inspire this sudden and triumphant calmness.
And even when the crisis is past, when the sorrow is sealed, it is not rebellion to sigh and weep.Our Father has made us so.He has opened the springs of love that well up within us, and can we help mourning when they turn to tears and blood? He has made very tender the ties that bind us to happiness, and can we fail to shrink and suffer when they are cut asunder? When we have labored long in the light of hope, and lo! It goes out in darkness, and the blast of disappointment rushes upon us, can we help being sad? Can the mother prevent weeping when she kisses the lips of her infant that shall prattle to her no more; when she presses its tiny hand, so cold and still,-the little hand that has rested upon her bosom and twined in her hair; and even when it is so sweet and beautiful that she could strain it to her heart forever, it is laid away in the envious concealment of the grave? Can the wife, or the husband, help mourning, when the partner and counsellor is gone,-when home is made very desolate because the familiar voice sounds not there, and the cast-off garment of the departed is strangely vacant, and the familiar face has vanished, never more to return? Can the child fail to lament, when the father, the mother,-the being who nurtured him in infancy, who pillowed his head in sickness, who prayed for him with tears on his sinful wandering, who ever rejoiced in his joy and wept in his sorrows,-can he fail to weep when that venerable form lies all enshrouded, and the door closes upon it, and the homestead is vacant, and the link that bound him to childhood is in the grave? Say, can we check the gush of sorrow at any of life's sharp trials and losses? No; nor are we forbidden to weep, nor would we be human if we did not weep,-if, at least, the spirit did not quiver when the keen scathing goes over it.But how shall we weep? O! Thou, who didst suffer in Gethsemane, thou hast taught us how.By thy sacred sorrow and thy pious obedience thou has taught us; by thy great agony and thy sublime victory thou has taught us.We must refer all to God.We must earnestly, sincerely say, "Thy will be done." Then our prayers will be the source of our strength.Then our sorrowing will bring us comfort."They will be done;" repeat this, feel this, realize its meaning and its relations, and you shall be able to say, with a rooted calmness, "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?""The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Who shall be able to say this as Jesus said it? They who struggle as he struggled,-who obey as he obeyed,-who trust as he trusted.There are those upon earth who have been able to say it.It has made them stronger and happier.
There are those in heaven who have been able to say it.They have gone up from earthly communions to the communion on high.Do you not see them there, walking so serenely by the still waters, with palms about their brows? Serenely-for in their faces nothing is left of their conflict but its triumph; nothing of their swollen agony but the massy enduring strength it has imparted.They have ceased from their trials, but first they learned how to endure them.
They submitted, but they were not overwhelmed.When sorrow came, each pious soul struggled, but trusted; and so was able to meet the last struggle,-was able to say as the shadow of death fell upon it, "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" They were resigned.Behold-theirs is the victory!
