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Page 19
It faces its hindrances and rises by overcoming them. It finds pain
besetting nearly every step of its advance, and the constant shadow of
its existence is sorrow. Along such a pathway it moves in its ascent
and, in spite of all opposition, it is never permanently hindered; while
sorrow and suffering continually add to its strength. The austere
experiences through which all pass hasten their spiritual growth. They
are ever ministers of blessing; they pay no visits without leaving some
fair gifts behind.
Questions arise here which it is difficult to answer. Why are such
ministries needed? Why could not the ascent of the spirit be along an
easier pathway? Why should it be necessary to write its history in tears
and blood? Inquiries like these are insistent. Optimism assumes that the
end always justifies the means, even when we are in the dark as to why
other means were not used; and that it is better to comfort ourselves
with the beneficent fact than to refuse to be comforted because we may
not penetrate the depths of the Cosmic process. The emphasis of thought
may well rest here. The austere is never merely the severe. What seems
to human sight to be evil and only evil, always has a side of benefit.
The soul is purified and strengthened as it rises above animalism; it is
made courageous by bodily pain; tears clarify its vision. Even Jesus is
said to have been made perfect by the things which He suffered. The
universal characteristic of life is growth, and growth ever reaches out
of old and narrow toward new, larger and better environment.
The soul needs strength, vision, sympathy, faith. These qualities are
the fruit of experience. Muscle is converted into strength by use; and
its use is possible only as it finds something to overcome. Vision is
largely the fruit of training. The man on the lookout discovers a ship
ahead long before the passenger on the deck. That fine accuracy of sight
has come to him as he has battled with the tempests, and learned to
distinguish between the whiteness of flying foam and the sunlight on a
sail. Clearness of spiritual vision is acquired in the same way. He who
can see even to "the far-off interest of tears" has been taught his
discernment by reading the meaning of nearer events.
Sympathy is the art of suffering with another without the definite
choice to do so. One soul spontaneously enters into the condition of
another and bears his pains and griefs as though they were his own; that
is sympathy. But who ever bore the griefs of another before he himself
had felt sadness? Sympathy is a fruit that grows on the tree of sorrow.
So intensely is this felt that even kindly words in hours of deep trial
are ungrateful if they come from one who had had no hard experience of
his own. In proportion as one has borne his own griefs he is presumed to
be able to bear the griefs of others. He who has passed through the
valley of the shadow, and who knows the way, is the only one whose hand
is sought by another approaching the same valley. No human
characteristic is more beautiful, or more appreciated, than sympathy;
but its genuineness is seldom trusted unless the one offering it is
known to have suffered himself.
Jesus is said to have been a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,
and, therefore, has led the long procession of the broken-hearted
toward hope and peace. There is no other place known among men for the
cultivation of sympathy except the school of suffering.
If possible, faith even more than sympathy is dependent on struggle.
There is no other conceivable means by which it can be acquired. It
cannot be imparted. No multiplying of words increases faith. If one has
been in the blackest darkness and some way, he knows not how, has been
led out into light, it will be easier for him to think that the same
experience may be realized again. If every sorrow has had in it some
hidden seed of blessing; if the overcoming of hindrances has ever
increased strength; if at the very moment that calamity seemed ready to
destroy the storm has blown around, and this has occurred again and
again, it is impossible to refrain from expecting, or at least hoping,
that behind the darkness an unseen hand is making things to work for
good. Faith is essential to courage. He never cares to struggle who
knows that failure is just ahead. Courage is required as the soul
progresses, and becomes more deeply conscious of the mysteries and
enemies by which it is surrounded. Faith results from the experience of
beneficent leading. If one has been guided by love through many periods,
and if that love has always been found waiting for its object on every
corner of life, it will, ere long, be expected, watched for, and
trusted.
Strength, vision, sympathy, courage, the fair attributes of the soul,
all appear as it overcomes difficulties, fights doubts, goes deep into
sorrow, and thus learns to realize that it is being led. It is easy to
see how sorrow, pain, and death in the older legends and poetry were so
often spoken of as beneficent angels. They are like those Sisters of
Charity who hide beneath their long black bonnets serene and angelic
faces. The austere in human life has never yet been explained, but it
has been justified millions of times, and will be justified every time a
human soul rises toward the goal for which all were created and toward
which all, slowly or swiftly, are moving.
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