SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

Waikato Argus, Volume III, Issue 209, 13 November 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

SERIOUS THOUGHTS.

PATIENCE. [by lady cook]. Patiexcb is an excellent virtue, and one 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 learnt to endure. Yet in the face of all the difficulties and trials which beset us through life, the wrongs and injuries, the diseases ami disappointments which are incidental to all, patience is essential to every one, irrespective of sex. We admire courage always, but seldom admire passive fortitude. But courage may be a mere animal instinct, and usually is, whereas patience is a high intellectual quality, and is the fruit of reason or religion. Chaucer wrote in his “ Persones Tale ” “ The philosophers say 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 disasters of Fate as this God-like gift of enduring calmly ? The fretful, fussy individual is contemptible to others and a misery to himselt. Whenever a woman is destitute ot this most womanly quality of quiet endurance, nature or education has robbed her of a distinguishing virtue of her sex, and she becomes one of those sour and querulous creatures that arc able to drive any man from house and home unless he has the patience ot Job. Its cultivation, therefore, is of primary importance, and should begin at the earliest stage of life. But when we see how young infants arc 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 selfcontrol, and be subject to criminal outbursts. So long as parents neglect their duties to their offspring, so long will wretchedness and vice roll 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 : " Patients," 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, Mada.n," says Titus Andronicus. Ours is 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 and 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 them. " The virtue of the best Pagans," says Lccky in his " History of European Morals," was perhaps of as high an order as that of the best Christians." And the patience of Pagan philosophers under persecution was no way interior to that of the followers of the Cross. Both have proved thousands of times over how sublimely men and women can suffer and die when sustained by this noblest of virtues. " Pound the body of Anaxarchus, for thou dost uot pound his soul," was said to the tyrant of Cyprus by the phi'osopher when brayed alive in a stone mortar with iron hammers to satisfy a mean revenge. " Follow God," was one of the most frequently repeated of Platonic maxims. " A God (what God I know not) dwells in every good man," said Epictetus. And Marcus Aurelius adds. " Offer to the God that is in thee a manly being, a citizen, a soildier at his post, ready to depart from life as soon as the trumpet sounds." Another teaching of the Stoics was " the duty of the most absolute unquestioning submission to the deeress of Providencs." '• To weep, to groan, is to rebel," said Seneci. "To fenr, to grieve, to bo angry, is to be a deserter," .said Aurelius, " Remember," wrote Epictetus, himself a cripple, " that you arc but an actor, acting whatever part the Master has ordained. If He wishes you to represent a poor man, do s) heartily ; if a cripple, or a magistrate, or a private man, in each case act your part with honour. . . . God does not keep a good man in prosperity. He tries him, He strengthens him. He prepares him for Himself." When Anaxagoras, the preceptor of Socrates, Pericles, Euripides, and many other famous pupils, was condemned to death because of scientific research, he ridiculed the sentence, and said it had long been pronounced upon him by Nature. He refused to have his corpse borne to bis own country, for, said he, " the road 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 the Stoics and Epicureans had renouced wealth and honours for practical philosophy, Epicurus himself taught that " all good and all evil consist in feeling, and what is death but the privation of feeling ?" And Cicero declared that " all virtue is in action." "The proper study of a wise man," said a great modern philosopher, "is not how to die, but how to live. . . .

There is no subjact on which the sage will think less than death." When Antoniua Pius was dying, and the tribune asked him for the password of the night, the Eraperer replied, " Aequantmitas I" (patience !). Action, feeling, and resignation form the three components of the worthiest life, but the crown of all is patieuce ; to know how to endure and how to wait; to render the in ml superior to all accidents of time or place. The imagination of the most imaginative race never conceived anything grander than the lonely Titan chained to Mount Caucasus with an eagle from year to year ever guawiug his vital organs. Beaten by tempests and chilled by the eternal snows, he lifted his eye 3 and voice in calm defiance ot his unjust persecutor, and patiently awaited the hour of his deliverance. He stands to-day, iu the records of Pagan genius, as a ghnt type of mortal endurance. But if we turn our eyes to Calvary, in the reisn of Tiberius, we perceive a still grander and more human example. He, who had renounced all things from His love of humanity, whose whole life had been spent in innocence and beneficence and the highest exercise of patience, condemned for blasphemy by the impure lips of those he wished to save, hangs bleeding on the Cross. But, iu that hour of supreme torture, His patience rose above His pain. "Father,'' He cried, "forgive them, for they know uot what they do."