Chapter I: Wouldn't (3)

True happiness (if understood)
Consists alone in doing good.

Talk happiness each chance you get--and talk it good and strong!
Look for it in the byways as you grimly pass along;
Perhaps it is a stranger now whose visit never comes,
But talk it! Soon you'll find that you and happiness are chums.

'Tis Being and Doing and Having that make
All the pleasures and pains of which mortals partake.
To Be what God pleases, to Do a man's best,
And to Have a good heart, is the way to be blest.

If the weather is cold don't scold,
If the weather is wet don't fret,
If the weather is warm don't storm,
If the weather is dry don't cry;
But be cheerful together, whatever the weather.

The inner side of every cloud
Is bright and shining;
Therefore I turn my clouds about,
And always wear them inside out,
To show the lining.

--Ellen Thornycroft Fowler Felkin.

Let him that loves his ease, his ease,
Keep close and house him fair;
He'll still be a stranger to the merry thrill of danger
And the joy of the open air.

--Richard Hovey.

There is no human being
With so wholly dark a lot,
But the heart, by turning the picture,
May find some sunny spot.

Let us cry, All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more now
Than flesh helps soul.

--Robert Browning.

AFFLICTION

CONSOLATION, TRIAL, ENDURANCE

RESIGNATION

There is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dead lamb is there!
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair.

The air is full of farewells to the dying
And mourning for the dead;
The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,
Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;
Amid these earthly damps
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no Death! What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call death.

She is not dead--the child of our affection--
But gone unto that school
Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives, whom we call dead.

Day after day we think what she is doing
In those bright realms of air;
Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.

Thus do we walk with her and keep unbroken
The bond which nature gives,
Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,
May reach her where she lives.

* * * * *

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling
We may not wholly stay;
By silence sanctifying, not concealing,
The grief that must have way.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

MADE PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING

I bless thee, Lord, for sorrows sent
To break my dream of human power;
For now, my shallow cistern spent,
I find thy founts, and thirst no more.

I take Thy hand, and fears grow still;
Behold thy face, and doubts remove;
Who would not yield his wavering will
To perfect Truth and boundless Love?

That Love this restless soul doth teach
The strength of thine eternal calm;
And tune its sad but broken speech
To join on earth the angel's psalm.

Oh, be it patient in thy hands,
And drawn, through each mysterious hour,
To service of thy pure commands,
The narrow way of Love and Power.

--Samuel Johnson.

GO NOT FAR FROM ME

Go not far from me, O my strength,
Whom all my times obey:
Take from me any thing Thou wilt,
But go not thou away--
And let the storm that does thy work
Deal with me as it may.

On thy compassion I repose,
In weakness and distress;
I will not ask for greater ease,
Lest I should love Thee less.
Oh 'tis a blessed thing for me
To need thy tenderness.

While many sympathizing hearts
For my deliverance care,
Thou, in thy wiser, stronger love,
Art teaching me to bear--
By the sweet voice of thankful song,
And calm, confiding prayer.

Thy love has many a lighted path,
No outward eye can trace,
And my heart sees thee in the deep,
With darkness on its face.
And communes with thee, 'mid the storm,
As in a secret place.

O Comforter of God's redeemed,
Whom the world does not see,
What hand should pluck me from the flood
That casts my soul on thee?
Who would not suffer pain like mine
To be consoled like me?

When I am feeble as a child,
And flesh and heart give way,
Then on thy everlasting strength
With passive trust I stay.
And the rough wind becomes a song,
The darkness shines like day.

O blessed are the eyes that see--
Though silent anguish show--
The love that in their hours of sleep
Unthanked may come and go.
And blessed are the ears that hear,
Though kept awake by woe.

Happy are they that learn, in thee--
Though patient suffering teach--
The secret of enduring strength
And praise too deep for speech:
Peace that no pressure from without,
No strife within, can reach.

There is no death for me to fear,
For Christ, my Lord, hath died;
There is no curse in this my pain,
For he was crucified.
And it is fellowship with him
That keeps me near his side.

My heart is fixed--O God, my strength--
My heart is strong to bear;
I will be joyful in thy love,
And peaceful in thy care.
Deal with me, for my Saviour's sake,
According to his prayer.

No suffering while it lasts is joy,
How blest soe'er it be,
Yet may the chastened child be glad
His Father's face to see;
And oh, it is not hard to bear
What must be borne in thee.

It is not hard to bear by faith,
In thine own bosom laid,
The trial of a soul redeemed,
For thy rejoicing made.
Well may the heart in patience rest
That none can make afraid.

Safe in thy sanctifying grace--
Almighty to restore--
Borne onward, sin and death behind,
And love and life before,
O let my soul abound in hope,
And praise thee more and more.

Deep unto deep may call, but I
With peaceful heart will say--
Thy loving-kindness hath a charge
No waves can take away;
And let the storm that speeds me home
Deal with me as it may.

--Anna Letitia Waring.

Walking along the shore one morn,
A holy man by chance I found
Who by a tiger had been torn
And had no salve to heal his wound.
Long time he suffered grievous pain,
But not the less to the Most High
He offered thanks. They asked him,
Why?
For answer he thanked God again;
And then to them: "That I am in
No greater peril than you see:
That what has overtaken me
Is but misfortune--and not sin."

--Richard Henry Stoddard.

THE CELESTIAL SURGEON

If I have faltered more or less
In my great task of happiness;
If I have moved among my race
And shown no glorious morning face;
If beams from happy human eyes
Have moved me not; if morning skies,
Books, and my food, and summer rain
Knocked on my sullen heart in vain;
Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take
And stab my spirit broad awake;
Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,
Choose thou, before that spirit die,
A piercing pain, a killing sin,
And to my dead heart run them in.

--Robert Louis Stevenson.