| Dr. J.R. Miller | Page 11 |
There are many things in life which are not to our mind, but which we cannot alter. Young people ofttimes fret over the limitations of their life, the narrowness of their opportunity. If only they had the home and the opportunities of some envied neighbor, they would get on a great deal better, making very much more of their life. They have to work constantly on the farm or in the shop. They have no time for reading. Their home is without cheerfulness, perhaps uncongenial. They love it, of course, but it lacks the privileges which they crave. It does not inspire them to their best. They grow discontented, and allow the hardnesses and uncongenialities of their lot to dishearten and depress them.
But what good can ever come from worrying over such things? The nobler way, the wiser way, is to accept the conditions that are discouraging, and to live cheerfully in them. Hard work is made easier when we can sing at it. Burdens are made light when one’s heart is filled with joy. When we acquiesce in any unpleasant experience, we have conquered the unpleasantness. A thoughtful writer says: “The soul loses command of itself when it is impatient, whereas, when it submits without a murmur, it possesses itself in peace, and possesses God… When we acquiesce in an evil, it is no longer such. Why make a real calamity of it by resistance? Peace does not dwell in outward things, but within the soul. We may preserve it in the midst of bitterest pain if our will remains firm and submissive. Peace in this life springs from acquiescence even in disagreeable things, not in exemption from bearing them.”
Besides, the very hardness of our condition is ofttimes that feature of it from which the greatest blessing comes. The world’s best men have not been grown in easy circumstances. Pampered, petted boys do not usually make the heroes and the great men of their generation. Hardship in early years, nine times out of ten, is that which makes a man strong and stalwart in character, and a power among men when he reaches his prime. Herodotus wrote: “It is a law of nature that faint-hearted men should be the fruit of luxurious countries; for we never find that the same soil produces delicacies and heroes.”
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