PATIENCE.
In your patience possess ye your souls.—Luke, xxi. 19.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
And patience, experience; and experience, hope.—Romans, v. 3, 4.
Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.—James, v. 10, 11.
Many are the sayings of the wise,
In ancient and in modern books unroll’d,
Extolling patience as the truest fortitude;
And to the bearing well of all calamities,
All chances incident to man’s frail life,
Consolitaries writ
With studied argument, and much persuasion sought,
Lenient of grief and anxious thought:
But with th’ afflicted in his pangs their sound
Little prevails, or rather seems a tune
Harsh, and of dissonant mood from his complaint,
Unless he feel within
Some source of consolation from above,
Secret refreshings, that repair his strength
And fainting spirits uphold.
Milton.
Give me care,
By thankful patience, to prevent despair:
Fit me to bear whate’er Thou shalt assign;
I kiss the rod, because the rod is Thine.
Francis Quarles.
Patience and resignation are the pillars
Of human peace on earth.
Young.
Like some well-fashioned arch thy patience stood,
And purchased strength from each increasing load.
Goldsmith.
A dungeon, dark and drear
As death, but in its cold and gloomy depths
I see a form of beauty, round whose locks
A glory plays, that lights the dungeon with
A quivering lustre—she is stretched upon
The damp cold earth, her head is pillowed on
One arm, the while its fellow presses to
Her heart a holy volume. O’er her eyes
The dove of peace seems brooding, while deep sleep
Heaves the long ringlets of the golden hair
That cluster on her neck, and sweep the earth:
A smile is lingering on her placid lip,
As though she dreamt of heaven, the while her brow,
As that same heaven, arched and calm, shoots forth
A halo—in her breast a dove is nestling,
And angel wings are spread to guard her dreams
From evil—favoured one of God—who art thou?
’Tis patience, the beloved of Heaven! the meek,
The mild, the lowly, and the gentle patience,
Whose eye looks up to God; and ne’er unbends
Its fixed and placid gaze to look upon
The thorns that tear her bleeding breast; who stands
Pale, calm, unmoved amid the storms of life;
Whose soul weeps not for heart’s torture—patience,
The meek-eyed pilgrim of the earth, that child
Of heaven—perfection’s crown.
C. L. Reddell.
For God, who binds the broken heart,
And dries the mourner’s tear,
If faith and patience be their part,
Will unto these be near.
Let such but say “Thy will be done!”
And He who Jesus raised,
Will qualify them, through His Son,
To say “Thy name be praised!”
Bernard Barton.
When, in justice, he appals us
By the threat of endless pain,
Sink not—soon His mercy calls us
To His pardoning arms again.
Father! O, with patience bless us,
Till each seeming ill be past:
Let whatever gloom oppress us,
All must end in light at last.
Thomas Ward.