Adversity

“ People who are always ready to construe adversity into a crime, would be much surprised were they to know the pains I have taken, that during my misfortunes it might never with truth be said of me, Thou hast deserved them. ”

“ Whatever, then, may be our theoretical difficulty about suffering, this truth is clear: when we are at our best we practically deal with suffering as though moral quality were the goal of life. We use adversity, as though discipline were its purpose and good its end. ”

“ A wretched soul, bruis'd with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
But were we burd'ned with like weight of pain,
As much, or more, we should ourselves complain. ”

“ If I send thee affliction, or any adversity, repine not, neither let thy heart be cast down.
I can quickly raise thee up again, and turn all thy burden into joy.
Nevertheless, I am just, and greatly to be praised, when I deal thus with thee.
6. If thou thinkest rightly, and considerest things in truth, thou oughtest never to be so much dejected and troubled for any adversity ”

“ Especially when one has fallen into adversity by his own fault, his misconduct, his dissipated life, it would seem that adversity must be most painful, most bitter, most difficult to endure, and that shame must be his constant companion. ”

“ The result of this follows as directly to discourage the man who is struggling with adversity, and tell him to submit to every misfortune, and not to overcome difficulties, but let them overcome him; assuring him that all misfortunes and evil are laws of God, against which he should not contend with mind ”

“ If it be sickness, ill success, or any adversity that hath caused it, oppose an invincible courage, “fortify thyself by God's word, or otherwise,” mala bonis persuadenda, set prosperity against adversity, as we refresh our eyes by seeing some pleasant meadow, fountain, picture, or the like: recreate thy mind by some contrary object, with some more pleasing meditation divert thy thoughts. ”

“ So suddenly moved to anger, so apt to take displeasure against another:
So ready to judge, so severe to reprove:
So joyful in prosperity, so weak in adversity:
So often making good resolutions, and yet bringing them at last to none effect.
3. These and other thy defects being confessed and bewailed with sorrow and great displeasure at thine own infirmity, make thou a firm resolution always to amend thy life, and to endeavour always after progress in holiness. ”

“ Adversity had not only ruined him, it had frightened him, and he was evidently going through his remnant of life on tiptoe, for fear of waking up the hostile fates. ”

“ Almost any one in ordinary conditions of adversity has it within his or her power, for merely one day or at any rate one hour, or one minute, to eliminate the fear, worry, anger, or other unwholesome emotions clamoring to take possession. ”

“ Percy Bysshe Shelley.
VICTORY IN DEFEAT The great, radiant souls of earth—the Davids, the Shakespeares, the Lincolns—know grief and affliction as well as joy and triumph. But adversity is never to them mere adversity ”

“ By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean. ”

“ But as abused prosperity is oftentimes made the very means of our greatest adversity, so was it with me. ”

“ If adversity hath killed his thousand, prosperity hath killed his ten thousand: therefore adversity is to be preferred; [3847] haec froeno indiget, illa solatio: illa fallit, haec instruit: the one deceives, the other instructs; the one miserably happy, the other happily miserable; ”

“ And there are other struggles with adverse circumstances—struggles, it may be, with habits or appetites or passions—all of which require as much courage and more perseverance than the brief encounter of battle. Enough to contend with, enough to overcome, lies in the pathway of every individual. It may be one kind of difficulties, or it may be another, but plenty of difficulties of some kind or other every one may be sure of finding through life. There is but one way of looking at fate, whatever that may be, whether blessings or afflictions,—to behave with dignity under both. ”

“ Undaunted met; who "counted losses gain;"
Who neither danger fear'd nor shrunk from pain;
Whom no reproach, or scourge, or threatened doom,
Or present woes, or vision'd ills to come,
Or height, or depth, or peril, flame, or sword,
Could sever from the love and service of his Lord. ”

“ Passionately convinced (at twenty) that we had sworn ourselves for life to each cause which we espoused, we have pleaded and planned and denounced and persuaded; have struck the shrewdest blows which our strength could compass, and devised the most dangerous pitfalls for our opponents' feet which wit could suggest. ”

“ Remember the man who in sorrow and danger, When thy glory was set, and thy spirit was low, When thy hopes were o'erturned by the arms of the stranger, And thy banners displayed in the halls of the foe, Stood forth in the tempest of doubt and disaster, Unaided, and single, the danger to brave. ”

“ It is good for us, when we are afflicted, to remember how and wherein we went astray before we were afflicted, that we may answer the end of the affliction. 2. Of the benefit of an afflicted state: " Now have I kept thy word, and so have been recovered from my wanderings." God often makes use of afflictions as a means to reduce those to himself who have wandered from him. Sanctified afflictions humble us for sin and show us the vanity of the world; they soften the heart, and open the ear to discipline. ”

“ We all have our infirmities; but the weak are more subject to them than others—the weak in knowledge or grace, the bruised reed and the smoking flax. We must consider these; not trample upon them, but encourage them, and bear with their infirmities. If through weakness they judge and censure us, and speak evil of us, we must bear with them, pity them, and not have our affections alienated from them. ”

“ Yes, the sorrows of the undecided are doubtless bitterer than those of the courageous; bitterer as poison is bitterer than medicine, as an enemy's wound is bitterer than a physician's. Yet it is true that the clearer the insight into difficulty and danger, the greater need be the courage to meet them. ”

“ Harassed by severe bodily ailments, encompassed by a raging tumult of religious conflict and persecution, and aware that the faint hopes of better times which seemed to gild the horizon of the future might be utterly darkened by a failure either in the constancy of his courage or in his discernment and discretion, he exerted his eloquence with unabating energy in the furtherance of the cause he had at heart. ”

“ So far from perceiving any moral courage, in those, who fight duels, nothing seems more apparent, than the triumph of one fear, over four other fears—the fear of shame, over the fear of bringing misery upon parents, wives and children—the fear of the law—the fear of God—and the fear of death. ”

“ To be tame and unprovoked when injuries press hard upon you, is more than weakness; but to look up for kinder usage without one manly effort of your own, would fix your character, and show the world how richly you deserve those chains you broke. To guard against this evil, let us take a review of the ground upon which we now stand, and from thence carry our thoughts forward for a moment into the unexplored field of expedient. ”

“ Thus much I thought it my duty to say to you who are under my care, to warn you against those temporal evils, which may draw the worst of spiritual evils after them; such as heart-burnings, murmurings, discontents, and all manner of wickedness, which a desperate condition of life may tempt men to. ”

“ Saved from a great peril, even the bitterness of death, they forget the danger that has passed, deny that they uttered cries of distress and appeals for help, and swagger in all the insolence of recovered strength. ”

“ Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... ”

“ Probably all great suffering comes accompanied with a reserve of strength or with a power of resistance which may even spring from weakness, but which invests the sufferer with courage, and perhaps, too, with hope, to meet it. ”

“ We contemplate with anxiety the outward troubles and vicissitudes of human life; but what should we feel if we could behold the inward vicissitudes, the troubles of the human soul?—if we could see how many dangers, snares, enemies, combats, victories, and defeats can be crowded into a day—an hour? ”

“ You know the mental and physical weakness of man, so common to mortality, and which the enemy is so ready to turn against you, to his own advantage. You think that your business needs your continual and undivided attention, that you must attend to this, or to that, before you can dedicate yourselves and families to the Lord. ”

“ The secret of it all is to resolve upon a firm attitude and maintain it. If you encourage thoughts of fear, hesitation, disease, trouble, decay, incompetency, failure and feebleness, you at once give an impetus to the disintegrating forces within you to begin their work—and you gradually become ill, timorous, and diseased in mind and body. ”

“ And have we, by any insolence or obstinacy of ours, caused you any suffering? Behold reason armed and standing in opposition to God, by whom all good and all bad fortune is brought to its accomplishment. ”

“ In the crisis of a disease, to mean well and lose the patient,—in the height of a tempest, to mean well and wreck the ship,—in a great moral conflict, to mean well and lose the battle,—these are things to be lamented. ”

“ With this dreadfully adverse condition of things is it possible to go into a struggle with a body of men, strong in their own cause, determined to fight, and who have every possible advantage on their side? ”

“ It may calm the apprehension of calamity in the most susceptible heart to see how quick a bound nature has set to the utmost infliction of malice. We rapidly approach a brink over which no enemy can follow us. ”

“ I say what is he the better for them, if they cannot procure him a remedy for the evil, nor even obtain him the least ease or relief? While the fit lasts, he suffers pain; and when it is over, he endures the terrors and apprehensions of fresh attacks. ”

“ Accept the ill-fortune which has now befallen you with manly fortitude and modesty, with simple dignity, and with a resolution to overcome the evil star which apparently has shone malignly upon you this time. ”

“ Therefore sickness, weepings, sorrow, mourning, and in conclusion all adversities be unto us as spurs; with the which we being dull horses, or rather very asses, are forced not to remain long in this transitory way. ”

“ I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse. ”

“ Nevertheless, in a vast crisis to feel one's self on the Lord's side, there to fight, win or lose, there to stay, alive or dead, is an enormous stay to the spirit. "I am hardened and set," says the English doctor, "by the thing I believe." ”

“ You, doubtless, must lament with me, the narrowness of our minds, in receiving the most blessed things, with the intrusion of necessary business—the cares of life—the heavy conflicts we have also to experience, with many painful visits from the enemy of our souls—the native reluctant of the body, and the pressure of many trying thoughts. ”

“ By the consequences I do not mean what the world will think of you, but, rather, the personal results of your action—what you must suffer while you are in the world, and what you must suffer when far beyond the world. ”

“ And this argument has the greater weight, the greater the advantages or disadvantages anticipated are said to be. With reference to the motive for an action we take into consideration also the feelings of minds, if any recent anger, or long-standing grudge, or desire for revenge, or indignation at an injury; if any eagerness for honour, or glory, or command, or riches; if any fear of danger, any debt, any difficulties in pecuniary matters, have had influence; if the man is bold, or fickle, or cruel, or intemperate, or incautious, or foolish, or loving, or excitable, or given to wine ”

“ What one desires to see in the lives of others is some sort of transformation, some evidence of patient struggling with faults, some hint of failings triumphed over, some gain of generosity and endurance and courage. To slur over the faults and failings of the great is not only inartistic: it is also faint-hearted and unjust. ”

“ The sense of violent bodily pain, or of perpetual misfortune, or of the baseness of all in whom he trusted, and other steady influx of many-fountained sorrow, may wear him for a time, and even fetch his spirit lower than the more vicarious woe can do. ”

“ To speak from your own description, was there ever a life, in its present period, less chequered with substantial bona fide misfortune? The whole force of every thing which looks like a misfortune was assiduously, unintermittedly, provided by yourself. ”

“ I have thought it necessary to touch on this normal duty of ours, though - and it may seem strange to say it - I feel at the moment it is even a digression. For the menace of our enemies hangs over us, and the essential immediate purpose is to show the spirit that animates us, and how we face the future. ”