The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-04-09

making up the eleven commandments
spoken of by the stranger. NH.
The Right Lessons OF Small Troubles.
To the endurance of great stroke OF
misfortune, or terrible burden of sor-
row, the soul gathers up its forces, and
girds itself with heroic strength. Forti-
tude is the natural chain-armor which
men put on when they are sorely beset.
But great troubles, calamities and dis
asters are events in life, which, what
ever may be thought of the sadness of
earth, are mostly exceptional and far
apart. The mighty winds of afiliction
come only occasionally, at periods re-
mote from each other, and with a sig
niticance in their desolation which is
not lightly overlooked. In a certain
sense, all great sorrows which are not
crimes are invested with the purple of
an imperial dignity. They elevate the
sufferer, and we behold him with an
accession of mournful respect.
There are constant petty exaspera-
tions, aggravations and annoyances
which come into ordinary human expe-
rience, and which rasp and vex us the
more that they are too small in them
selves to be talked about. The triiing
perplexities and harassments of the av-
erage day are often wearing and weari-
some, and are frequently received in a
temper of Impotence and irritation
which is blameworthy. Perhaps it was
of these that Solomon was thinking,
rather than of larger griefs, when he
wrote that immortal aphorism, ''He
that is slow to anger is better
than the mighty, and he that ruleth
his spirit than he that taketh a
CITY," We make the grand effort
for the great occasion, which comes sell
dom. For the small occasions, which
come continually, and ON which our
personal ease and the happiness of our
homes depend, we make small efforts
or none. The self-controlled man in
the Office, the mart and the shop is the
man whose ascendency is undoubted
and evident. The self-controlled wom-
an, in the parlor, the school-room, the
nursery, or the kitchen, is the woman
whose look is a command, and whose
voice is an inspiration. Because the
majority of people lack self-restraint,
just here amid the frictions, embarrass-
ment and provocations of daily COM
monplace life, it is left to few to do
the governing. set the bright examples,
maintain the cheerful, peaceful homes,
and show forth the beauty and comeli-
ness of order. The undisciplined
heart, the hasty temper. the intlrm
will, the querulous disposition, and the
petulant habit of speech, neither win
influence nor retain it in the economy
of human affairs. And so we have i'm.
pertinent servants, disobedient chill
dren, ill-regulated schools and business
machinery which is imperfectly adjust
ed, wherever we havemen and womeN
who have not learned self-mastery il
the midst of the smaller trials of the
ordinary day. ....si r.
What are the right lessons of small
troublesP Were we to gain nothing
from them, they would surely not be
appointed to us. We talk with glib as
surance of Gods providence when
things 90 pleasantly, when the sur
shines, when riches accumulate, when
our ships come joyously into port, and
when our lives are set to sweet music
and cushioned in soft luxury. Then it
is easy to see the good hand of om
God. But it is Gods providence that
sends the long illness, the broken hope,
the lost money and the deferred success.
1t is the good hand of our God that
sometimes bestows pain and chastise-
ment, and sometimes withholds glad
ness and coronation. And one of the
real reasons why we need thorns and
rods, as well as roses and summer
breezes, is that our dull senses are slow
to acknowledge Gods right to do with
and upon us as He pleases. When the
will of the divine Father becomes
sweet, whatever it be, we have learned
one lesson which we can never learn
except on the pages of adversely that
are punctuated with tears.
Then, too, sorrow refines and emo
bles. The gentleness that most truly
blesses and softens character is acquired
most certainly under the stern severi-
ties of life, and not under its mirthful
aspects. The lesson of sympathy with
the tried, of tolerance for the mistaken,
and of long suffering with the erring,
the lesson of Christian charity, cannot
NC ldhSl lllO ~ lllc cAcSpt ny uCSiCcS.
They who have suffered understand suf-
fering. A lady had lost her babe, her
only one; she sat by its body in marble
composure, deaf TO all words OF COM
fort, till poor, work worn woman
came in, knelt by her side ana said: al
know how you feel, have buried five" "
The last, dearest, best lesson which
sorrow teaches is that we are sharers
of the sufferings of Christ. Heirs of
His glory, we are also, in our own flesh,
made like to Him in the fellowship OF
grief. Strangely enough, we learn to
know this, not so much in our OCCASION
al Gethsemanes as in the dusty high
road of our everyday life.-1S. S. Times.