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Untitled Article
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Untitled Article
it is what is within the heart and the soul that decides our real destiny ; it is the controul or neglect of the moral world within us that alone can render us permanently happy or miserable : and how many do we see in life who , being eaten up with the cares of riches , the deceitfulness of worldly pleasures , and the thousand vain objects that surround them , are living wholly to external things , and hold no communication with their own hearts ; who
go thoughtlessly down the stream of time till they are suddenly startled by the call of death , and gaze with dismay in their dying hour upon their unprepared condition ! Whatever saves us from a fate like this , in whatever painful form it comes , is surely a blessing , and perhaps the greater to us when we have not been aware of the necessity of it . We do not believe that our Heavenly Father can chasten us for his pleasure , because we know
he loves us and does not willingly afflict us ; and if indeed it be for our profit , let us take heed that we do not misunderstand his purposes or counteract his merciful intentions . We are liable to do this in various wavs , and
it may be useful to point out a few of them . In the first place , we counteract the kind designs of Providence in our afflictions whenever they make us morbid and useless , when we give way to unavailing sorrow instead of performing the active duties which remain to us , when we yield to self-indulgence , and think our grief is a sufficient excuse for it : by so doing we increase our own sufferings ten-fold , and we also make those around us uncomfortable . 2 dly . We misuse our afflictions when they make us selfish and exorbitant in our claims on the sympathy and kindness of others , when we torment them with vain lamentations
or anxieties which they cannot relieve , and give vent to our own sorrow at the expense of the peace and comfort of our friends . Religion cannot be said to sustain the mind which feels a continual necessity for this , for it is one of the first and happiest results of religion to produce a self-dependence in adversity , to make the communion with our Father and our God supersede the necessity of other comfort and confidences . In the 3 rd place , we
defeat the intent of our afflictions , when , instead of bringing our faith and principle to meet and support them , we try to evade their effect altogether , and to dissipate our painful feelings , by escaping as much as possible , if not entirely , from the consideration of them . It is not thus that they can work out for us any good results ; we may forget them in the hurry of business , or stifle them in the amusements of society , or assume a stoicism or a gaiety we do not feel ; but what is this but to heal an uncured wound , which at
any moment may break out with a fresh violence ? No , it is by religion , and religion alone , that we can really conquer our sufferings ; that we can rise beyond their influence into higher and more extended views ; that , taking into the prospect our heavenly destiny , and all the circumstances of our lives as connected with it , we can feel all the narrowness of selfish sorrow , and the folly c ? f clinging so eagerly to the things which are so soon to pass away . In this light we shall see adversity in its true colours—not as the dark destroyer of our enjoyments , but as the minister of good , sent to try our faito . Jo exercise our virtues , and to rouse our faculties to their
noblest efforts . | n addition to these advantages , if improved as it ought to be , it will teach es huniitity .. It is a strange fact , but it is nevertheless true , that some persons seem to think that much affliction privileges them to be objects of peculiar respect and attention , as if they had attained a right not merely to complain , but to engross the sensibility and time of all around them , and to monopolize the general sympathy . But it should be remembered that it is the improvement of chastisement , and not the chastisement
Untitled Article
694 Thoughts on Affliction .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1829, page 694, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2577/page/22/
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