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There is nothing here of the exuberance of Oriental imagination. It is absolute matter of fact, capable of being proved by countless witnesses. Various lessons are to be drawn from it, but the most valuable of all for these times is the overwhelming testimony borne by it to the religious nature of man, and to the high degree of probability of the existence of a God of love who can inspire such absolute trust in Himself under the most crushing temporal misfortune. It places the efforts to uproot all faith in God in the light of an inexpressible folly, not to say of a flagrant crime. Is it not folly to take away from any man the power by which he becomes able to behave in a more manly way than he could have done without it? Viewed even from atheistic ground, mankind at large are all the better for the calm and resigned behaviour of those who suffer adversity. We go further, and say, it verges closely on criminal blindness to the interests of humanity to proclaim an atheism which, if accepted, would leave the souls of the afflicted absolutely without anything to cling to, without consolation, without hope; worse still, to deprive them of that conviction by which all the nobler part of their nature is sustained and called into vigorous exercise. How shall we bear the storm of adversity when it breaks upon us? Shall we prove our sovereignty over things of time and sense, or shall we disclose our shame in exhibiting ourselves as their slaves? The alternative depends upon what is the ground of our daily hopes. Not in Stoicism is to be found the normal type of manliness under adversity. Contentment is a virtue of soul which, when healthy, exercises itself in various ways. A great deal of so-called contentment is nothing more than physical indifference or mental inactivity. Habit is the parent of such contentment, and where the habits have been always moderate and temperate, contentment with a small portion is easy and natural. But the virtue of contentment is something much higher than this. Virtue is always active; when it is passive it ceases to be virtue, and becomes only an admirable quality, or enviable habit. Contentment, to be virtuous, must spring from opposition to our wills and desires, can only exist in circumstances which are trying and painful. It is our task to show how certain virtues can best be attained by those who are deficient in them, to point out by what spiritual forces the native weakness of our nature may be justified, and what relation true religious faith bears to the necessities of our lot, and the exigencies of our moral character. I would show, if I could, whence the blessed springs of virtue can be drawn; to whom we may look for the light and warmth needful for its birth and fertility. If a discontented man would fain possess the virtue of contentment, he will never get it by altering the conditions of his lot, but by the elevation of his soul above them, by finding, in a will higher than his own, complete and boundless satisfaction. This virtue is largely begotten and cultured by faith in the living God. But what is this faith in the living God? It is not merely the assent of our intellect to certain propositions about God, though it must be such as the reason entirely endorses. First, it implies the possession of a soul which cannot be satisfied with earthly good or animal pleasure. He who believes in God hab a life of conscious existence, of hopes, and fears, and appetites, which find activity and satisfaction in a purely spiritual region of its own. To such a soul God is not less a reality than the earth on which the body treads, or the sun shining in the heavens. Out of this conscious communion with God grow two important constituents of faith — perfect acquiescence in the Divine will, and a supreme desire to obey its behests. The former of these is the essence of contentment. It differs by a whole heaven from the contentment of the fatalist. No supreme power has a right to demand the assent of man to wrongs and injuries which are the result of blind chance, or inflicted by caprice, still less to wrongs which will not issue in final good. But how different must be the feeling and conduct of man, when the power which seems to crush him is invested with all the attributes of justice and fatherly love. He promptly surrenders, because he knows, at least, that there is a higher wisdom than his own which guides the forces of pain and destruction; more perfect goodness than his own is the cause of misfortune, and best of all, that a love infinite in its benevolence, is the impulse from which every motion in the universe has sprung. This is faith; to see what is invisible to the senses, or to the immature mind. God does not wish us to bear a single sorrow that we can by righteous means avert; all He asks is that we will trust in His wisdom and greater love when trouble comes which we cannot prevent. And if faith consoles us, still more does it purify and refine us.

(Charles Foysey.)

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KJV: Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:

WEB: For though the fig tree doesn't flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls: