Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1875-08-19
PATIENT SUFFERERS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF JOHN HALIFAX, GEN
TLEMAN."
There is one wreck in which the suffer
ers can never touch land, unless it be the
Land Eternal mean the fate of those
who find themselves smitten with incura-
BILE disease, or doomed to hopeless invalid
ISM 1t may be eXating matter over mind,
placing the physical above the spiritual
but | think to be imprisoned for life in a
miserable body, which hampers and par
alyzes the soul, is as sad lot as any sen.
tmental sorrow. The more So as it is such
an every day occurrence that it eXcites lit
tie compassion.
We lavish great sympathy upon sudden,
accidental illnesses; but the chronic suffer
ers, those who carry about with them some
perpetual pain, for which there is no ease
but death ;or even the mere valetudinarians,
who never feel quite well" cannot do
things which other people do, and have
continually to give up things they would
like to do for fear of being trouble to
others-these we get so used to that we often
cease to pity them, or to consider what a
heavy burden they have to bear, and how
much courage they need in order TO sustain
itall.
For it is such an essentially solitary bur
den. No healthy person can understand
even the small misery of feeling ALWAYS
tired :" and when it comes to worse than
this, when one has to sit still and gaze into
long years OF helplessness, perhaps acute
pain, and, though it is still noondav, face
the certainty that no genial sun will ever
burst into that dim twilight-then life
grows very difficult, very dark. To most
the future is so obscure that they can build
1t mp in any iancitul way they please, but
to these it is like a blank wall, with moth
ing beyond. To sit down and face it,
knowing that our small round of interests,
pleasures or l;SDors can never be wider
than now, nay, VIII probably narrow day
by day; that we can give no pleasure to
anybody and receive little from anybody
that, somehow or other, we know not why,
God has made us separate from our kind 4;
TO invent poor, tragmentary life for our
selves, and bear il by ourselves until death
comes to unite the knot and lift off the
burden-ths, | think, is as sad fate as
can bciall any human being.
The only way to meet it is to accept it,
Cease trying to get well and worrying
about each small symptom Of being worse
or better Remember Iezekiah, who
sought not the Lord, but the physicians"
i L
who hold that prayers are to supersede
mustard plasters, and esteem amounting
with oil substitute for good food and
wholesome water. Still | do think there
is something in the solemn peace of soul
that has ceased to struggle with its body
but takes cheerfully the modicum of
health allowed it, which actually conduces
10 that very health which is signed.
ba. 18th, 70
say: 1T does not much matter; at worst
can but die" sickness, and death itself
lose their terrors. An old man, a cruel
sufferer, once said to me; "If my pain is
tolerable must bear it; if it is intolcrable
| shall not have TO bear it long" Nor
had he; and when, not may DAYS after,
stood looking down on the peaceful face,
so grand in its everlasting calm. with the
wrinkles all smoOthed oat and the irrita-
Die conTactions of pain forever gone, |
wished that to the end of my DAYS | might
nave strength 10 remember those words.
Remember them, too You whose life is
but the fragment Of what it might have
been, either in mind or body-for the
mind Is so strangely affected by the body
let try To gather up these fragments
iAey may be worth something still. Try
% separate the spiritual from the physical
as much as YOU can, and when you grow
irritable. eNactlng, prone to see everything
10 an exaggerated light, and to think that
never was anyone so afflicted as you, say
!" yourself; q" 1t is only my body: /, the
.sal ne, must not let it conquer me. This
Ae>h Is my temporary dungeon, yet
Stone walls do not prison make,
Nor iron bars cage.
! he mind innocent and quiet may abide
With me still''
Az and so it often IS. Are not SEINE Of
lie very sweetest faces we know, faces thai