n silence,
and go their way without bestowing any attention upon him. But the two are
commonly actuated by very different impulses. The one turns away with
anger and loathing, and is silent because it is beneath his dignity to
reply, or to notice the aggressor. The other, though tempted to anger,
remembers the example of him whom he serves. Who, when he was reviled,
reviled not again and leaves the railer, striving to pity his ignorance,
and to forget his insult. Pride accomplishes, outwardly, in the one case,
what Christian humility does in the other. So in cases of great
affliction, it is sometimes hard to decide, from outward indications,
whether divine grace or native force of will is the stronger. The worldly
man will exhibit equal composure with the Christian; will seem, for the
time, to accept the visitation with no less equanimity than the other. But
those who are much with men under such circumstances, and come perhaps as
close to their hearts as it is possible for man to do, recognize a very
decided difference. They know that the composure which springs from
stoicism, iron nerve, indomitable will, is a different thing from that
which is born of submission and resignation to the will of God. That the
one but crowds the sharp grief deeper into the heart, and shuts up the
fountain of healing tears, and makes the man hard and sullen and defiant,
and chills his sympathies, and disposes him to solitary brooding, and
after all, gives way at last, and leaves him a broken reed, while the
other finds in the breach which God made in his cherished plans, an
opening through which heaven smiles on him, rises on the ruins of his
wrecked hopes to a purer and more unselfish life, draws sweetness out of
his sorrow, and wins a firmer trust in God, and a deeper and more
comprehensive sympathy for his sorrowing brethren everywhere. These
differences are endless. They cover every variety of experience. The world
talks of the dignity of man, asserts his knowledge and his unimpaired
judgment. The Christian distrusts his deceitful heart and fallen nature,
and becomes a little child that he may know the truth. The world walks by
sight and sneers at faith. Faith is the Christian's atmosphere, out of
which he cannot breathe freely. The world talks of law, the Christian of
providence. The world knows God, either vaguely, as a deity to be feared
for his power, and but dimly apprehended by man, or as a mere aggregate of
laws divorced from any