There is but one explanation of this strange contradiction: in the depths of their hearts people know that their life is not in the body but in the spirit, and that their sufferings are alvrays needful, are requisite for the happiness of their spiritual life. When men, seeing no sense in human life, revolt against sufferings, but still keep on living, it merely shows that asserting with their mind the materiality of life, they know in their hearts that it is spiritual and that no sufferings can deprive man of his true ha.'^'CNiesft.
THE PATHWAY OF LIFE
Sufferings Teach Man to Maintain a Rational Attitude to Life
All that which we call ills, all sorrows—if we only understood them as we ought—improve our soul. And in this improvement is our life:
Verily, verily I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the diild, she rememhereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is bom into the world. John XVI, 20-21.
2. The sufferings of irrational life lead us to acknowledge the need of rational life.
3. Just as only the darkness of night reveals the heavenly lights, so only suffering reveals the true purpose of life. Thoreau.
4. Outward obstacles work no injury to the man who is strong in spirit, for injury is all that which disfigures or weakens, though they might cause injury to animals as they are angered or weakened by obstacles; but the man who meets with the strength of the spirit which is given to him finds only added moral beauty and strength in all obstacles. Marcus Aurelius.
5. He who is young and inexperienced does not know that which older men learn by experience, he does not know that all that which we call sorrow is a genuine good, that it /s a trial to prove how firm we are in that which we know
and confess. And tf we are not firm, trials are needed to make us firm.
6. Only after an experience of suffering have I discovered the close kinship of human souls with one another. No sooner have you had your full share of suffering than all those who suffer become intelligible to you. But more than that: your mind clears: circumstances and achievements of people hitherto hidden to you become manifest and you see clearly what is needful to each. Great is God who enlightens us. Enlightens us with what? With the very sorrows from which we would flee and hide. In sorrow and suffering it is given to us to seek out the grains of wisdom that cannot be found in any book. Gogol.
7. If God gave us teachers of whom we Jmew for a certainty that they were sent of God himself, we should obey them freely and gladly.
But we have such instructors in necessity and in all the vicissitudes of life. Pascal.
8. Not only is every visitation of Providence profitable to every creature, but it is profitable at the very time when it is sent. Marcus Aurelius.
9. The man who does not realize the beneficial nature of suffering has not commenced to live the life of reason, the true life.
10. I pray God to free me from suffering which troubles me. But this suffering was sent to me by God to deliver me from evil. The master uses his whip on an animal to drive it from a burning inclosure and to save it, but the animal prays to escape the lash!
U. That which we regard as our misfortune is mostly good which we have not yet comprehended.
THE PATHWAY OF LIFE
Sicknesses ire Not a Hindrance But a Help to
True Life
1. Life consists in transforming the animal within us more and more into a spiritual being. And that which we call ills is requisite for this purpose. Only by the things which we call ills—griefs, sicknesses, sufferings^-do we leam to transform our animal self into the spiritual.
The mere fact, well known to us all, that those who succeed in all the things of life, those who are always well and rich, who know no injuries or humiliations, are frequently so weak and mostly so very wicked, shows how necessary are trials to man. And yet we complain when it is our lot to bear them 1
2. We call suffering a misfortune, but if there were no suffering, man would not know where he ends and where that commences which is not himself.
3. When we feel weakest in body, we can be strongest in spirit. Lucy Mallory.
4. There is no sickness which could prevent us from fulfilling the duty of man. If you catmot serve your neighbor by toiling serve him by the example of bearing your suffering with love.
5. Illness attacks every man and he must take heed not so much how to cure himself as how to live best in the circumstances in which he finds himself.
6. There is a story about a man who was punished for his sins by being denied death. It may be boldly stated that if man were punished by beii^ incapable of suffering, this punishment would be still more severe.
7. It is wrong to conceal from a sick man that he may die of his sickness. On the contrary, he should be reminded
of it. By concealing this fact from him, we deprive him of that blessing which illness can give him in stimulating him through the consciousness of approaching death to an increased effort towards the apprehension of spiritual life.
8. Fire destroys and gives comfort through warmth. Even so it is with sickness. When a man in good health tries to live well, he does so with an effort. But in the case of a sick man the burden of worldly temptations is lightened, and the task is made easy, and it is even awesome to think how this burden will return in fullness and will oppress us again as soon as the sickness is past.
9. The worse a man feels in his body, the better off he is in spirit. And therefore man can not be badly off. The spiritual and the physical are like a pair of scales: the heavier the physical, the higher rises the spiritual and the better it is with the soul, and vice versa.
10. "Senility, second childhood, is the decay of consciousness and of the life of man"—so say some.
I call to my mind the picture of St. John the Divine, who, according to the tradition, passed into a state of senility, into second childhood. Tradition relates that he only repeated these words: "Brethren, love one another!"
A centenarian, barely able to creep about, with watering eyes, mumbling forever these three words: "Love one another!" In such a man physical existence is the faintest glimmer, it is all swallowed up by a new attitude to the world, by a new living creature that no longer can be bound in the envelope of the existence of carnal man.
The man who knows life for what it truly is cannot speak of a decrease in life through sickness or old age, cannot grieve over it, any more than the man who approaches the light can grieve over the lessening of his shadow in proportion to his approach to the light.
V. So-called lib are Only Our Own Eirors
1. If anything disagreeable occurs to us, we mostly blame either our fate or other people. We do not realize that if either fate or other people can cause us any ill, then there is something wrong with us. He who lives for his soul cannot suffer any ill from any person or any thing: persecutions, injuries, poverty and sickness are as nothing to such a man. Epictetus.
2. Sufferings are particularly hard to bear for him who having set himself apart from the world fails to see the sms through which he brought suffering into the world and therefore considers himself blameless.
3. Ills exist only within us, that is they exist in a place whence they can be removed,
4. Frequently a superficial man meditating over the calamities which so oppress the human race loses hope in the possibility of improvement in life and experiences a feeling of dissatisfaction with Providence which rules the world. This is a grievous error. To be satisfied with Providence (though it set before us right now the most difficult path in life) is in the highest degree important not only that we may not lose courage amid the difficulties of life, but principally that we may not,, shi fting the blame upon fate, lose sight of our own guilt, which is the sole cause of all ills.