Our
platitudes on the "benefits of affliction" are usually about as
vague as our theories of Christian Experience. "Somehow" we believe
affliction does us good. But it is not a question of "Somehow."
The result is definite, calculable, necessary. It is under the
strictest law of cause and effect. The first effect of losing
one's fortune, for instance, is humiliation; and the effect of
humiliation, as we have just seen, is to make one humble; and the
effect of being humble is to produce Rest. It is a roundabout
way, apparently, of producing Rest; but Nature generally works by
circular processes; and it is not certain that there is any other
way of becoming humble, or of finding Rest. IF a man could make
himself humble to order, it might simplify matters; but we do not
find that this happens. Hence we must all go through the mill.
Hence death, death to the lower self, is the nearest gate and the
quickest road to life.
Yet this is only half the truth. Christ's life outwardly was one
of the most troubled lives that was ever lived: tempest and tumult,
tumult and tempest, the waves breaking over it all he time till the
worn body was laid in the grave. But the inner life was a sea of
glass. The great calm was always there. At any moment you might
have gone to Him and found Rest.
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