Patience.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 22 August 1910, Page 4

Patience.

(By Lady Cook, nee Tennessee C. Clnflin). Patience i.s an excellent virtue, an done of those most difficult to acquire. Woman possesses it in a far greater degree than man, and this has been one of her compensations for long ages of servitude. It was necessary to her to endure or die, and she has Jearnt to endure. Yet, in the face of all the difficulties and trials which beset us through life, the wrongs and injuries, the diseases and disappointments which are incidental to all, patience is essential to everyone, irrespective of sex. We admire courage always, but seldom admire passive fortitude. But courage nmv be a mere animal instinct, and usually is, whereas patience is a high intellectual quality, and is the fruit of reason or religion. Chancer wi'ote. in his "Parsones Tale" : "The philosophers sayth that patience is the virtue that suffereth debonairly all the outrages of adversitee, and every wicked word." What armour, then, can be so effectual against the disaster of Fate as this G„a4ikc gift of ends wing calmly? * The fretful, fussy individual is contemptible to others, and a misery to himself. Whenever a woman is destitute of this most womanly quality of quiet endurance, nature or education has robbea her of a distinguishing virtue of her sex, and she becomes one of those sour and querulous creatures that are able to drive any man from house and home unless be has the patience of Job. Its cultivation, therefore, is of primary importance, and should begin at the earliest stage of life. But when we see how young infants are permitted, by the indulgence of foolish mothers, to defy them and their nurses, to struggle and scream and kick in paroxysms of passion whenever they are thwarted, and habitually disobey as they become older, we need not wonder that, with such a training, they should grow up without self-control and be subject to criminal outbursts. So long as parents neglect their duties to their offsprinig, so long will wretchedness and vice iio'l.l on, and many a man whose evil passions control him would be tempted, if he knew all, to curse the irrational fondness of the_ mother who bore him. The origin of our word denotes its meaning "Patient," suffering, or learning, that is to say, calmly. We have lost the old English verb "to patient." which was in vogue down to Shakespeare's time. " Patient yourself, Madame," says Titus Andronicus. Ours mi a sterling, solid word, which has sustained its signification for ages, and has seen good service in the life of humanity. The martyrs for philosophy a 'nd religion, to say nothing of others, gave notable examples of its meaning when they cheerfully endured all the agonies that tyrannous intolerance could inflict upon tliem. " The virtue of tihe best Pagans," says Lecky, in "History ol European Morals," "was perhaps of as high •li". order as that of the best Gh.ri.s--tians." And the patience of Pagan philosophers under persecution was no way inferior to that oi the followers of the Cross. Both have proved thousands of times over how sublimely men and women can suffei and vdie when sustained by this noblest of virtues.

"Pound the body of Anaxarehus. ■lor thou dost not pound his soul!'' was said to the tyrant of Cyprus by the philosopher when buried alive in a stone mortar with iron hammers to satisfy a mean revenge. "Follow God," was one of the most frequently-repeated of latonic maxims '[A god (what god 1 know not) dwells in every good man," said Epictetus. And Marcus Aurelhis adds: "Offer to the god that is in three a manly being, ~ citizen, a soldier at his post, ready to depart from life as soon "as the trumpet sounds."

Another teaching of the Stoics waa "the duty of the most absolute ami unquestioning submission to the decrees of Providence." "To weep, um ffroa "' ' s to rebel," said Seneca.' To fear, to grieve, to be angry, is to be a deserter," said Atireliifs. '•Remember," wrote Epictctus, himself a cripple, "th a t vou are bait an actor, acting whatever part the .Master has ordained. If He wishes you to represent a poor man,, do .so hoartdy; if a cripple, or a magistrate, or a puvate man, in each c > se your part with honour. God dors not keep a good man in pro.sp-:it.y. He tries, He «twrtlieiis !:i:n. , r Tc prepares him forHi.-'ii-selt."

Anava-oras, the pwceptor of S.Krit-s, Pericles. Ewipiides, and many other famous pupils, was ;onoemnel to death because of scienti- " ' .:;cal'd:, he ridiculed; (he s'Mi-t-:i; '0, and said it had Ions: been prono/lire:! upon him by Nature. He refused to have his corpse Wne to b:s own country, for. said he "the r'ad that leads to the other side of the grave is as long from one place as the other." Nor were these mere precepts, for he, like numbers of t'he Stoics and Epicureans, had renounced weaitli and honours for practical philosophy. Epicurus himself faught that "all good and all evil consist in feeliiy.r and what is death but the privation of feeling?" and Cicero declared that all virtue is in action." "The pioper study of a wise man," said a great modem philosopher, "is not how to die, but how to live. . There is no subject on which the* sage will think less than death." When Antbniiis Pius was dying, and the tribune asked liim for tlnTpassword of the night, the Emperor replied « Aequanimitas!" (patience). Action, feeling, and resignation form the three components of the worthiest life, but the crown of all is patience: to know how to endure and 'how to wait; to render the mind superior to aid accidents of time or place. The imagination of the most imaginative race never conceived anytlung grander than the lonely I'ltnii chaired to Mount Caucasus with an ca2> from year to year gnawing ..is vita] organs. Beaten by ten:p-n*.-j anu chilled by the eternal s-nvs he lifted his eyes and voice in .fll.n leiiarice of his ■unjust persK-.ttor -Mr? patiently awaited the hour of 1:,,s Wivcrance. He stands to-cl-vv, .n t.o irty-crds of Pagan genius, as a giant ty*,* of mortal endura n^.

. But if w->'t,ir.- our ever, to Calvary, in the reign .. j.benus, we perceive a still grr- er r:ul more human ex-am-p.o. Ho w.ii > had renounced ail thm.rs •;-n Hs love cf humanity, \\hoso v.!,r.S 1,", had been spent in innocence a.id boneiicenee and the ■iighes', c:ce> -i.se of patience, condemn e , for blasphemy by the impure lips ff Mioses He wished to save bangs Ixbodirg on the Cross; but, in that hour of supreme torture, His < l T e .- V v S . al)ove His Pa»n. Father," He cries, "forgive them, for they know not what they do!"