The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1899-01-27
A NEW YEAR PROMISE.
Experiences Which Seem uindranceS
Are Really Helps-JOy and Sorrow
Tend to Good Results.

As we start anew upon another
welvemonth, it is natural to wonder
what it is to bring to us. Are our ex-
oeriences to be good or bad? Are the
lows to predominant or the sorrows2
bhall we have the things we most de-
lire, or will the bitter things crowd out
The sweet? We ask such questions as
these because we are in the habit of
thus dividing our experiences. In one
class we put all those which give us
pleasure and call them good; in the
other all those which give us pain, and
call them evil. Is every individual life,
then, made up of good and evil things
in varying proportions? If so, then
those who have the most discipline fare
the worst and those who have the least
are to be congratulated, and we must
count the past year good or bad, ac-
cording to the preponderance of the
pleasant or the unpleasant.
This is neither good Christian nor
even good heather philosophy. Soc
rates, the heather sage, said: mo
evil can happen to good man, either in
life or after death" Paul, the Christian
Apostle, put the truth in the positive
form: "All things work together for
good to them who love God and are the
called according to His purpose" The
idea of the Grecian philosopher was
that pain and toll, sorrow and Attic
ton, loss of friends and possessions,
+ are not evils, but part of the discipline
of life. They do not work injury to the
soul, over which death itself has NO
power. Accident and outward circum-
stance cannot overwhelm; evil can only
come by choice. The Christian philoso-
pher carries the thought further, and
SAYS that all those experiences which
men call bad or sad, and which they
think themselves happy to escape, re-
suit in good to him whose faith is fixed
in God. They are not hindrances, but
helps. They work together for good;
and whether sunshine or storm, JOY
or sorrow, health or disease predomi-
note, the result must still be good. Suf-
fering is not the sign of evil, else were
the life of Christ bad indeed. The af-
ilictions of Job were not due to his in
iuuity, as his counselors assumed
Gods wrath was kindled against them;
but He accepted Job and restored to
him in double measure.
It was the cry of Jocob, when his
sons found the purchase money for the
corn ir the mouth of their sacks, and
Joseph and Simeon and Benjamin did
not return: "All these things are
against me-" He judged by appear
ances, and judged wrongly. Those
very things were working together for
his good. The disciples judged that
the betrayal of Christ, His arrest, trial,
sentence, crucifxion, death, were the
triumph of the forces of evil. Never
were men more disappointed, dis
/ tressed, dismayed. They trusted
that it had been Christ which
should have redeemed Israel; but
everything was lost. All their hopes
were shattered. 1t was as though the
sun had suddenly been blotted out.
But the resurrection opened their
blind eyes, and they saw that no ca
Iamity had happened, but that those
things which to them had seemed only
evil had worked together for good. Not
Islael alone, but the whole world was
redeemed, and what they had counted
dreadful, irremediable disaster was vic
tory incompatible, glory unspeakable.
If we are to take this view of expert
ences, all things are really ours, and
there is no such thing as defeat for him
whose faith is fixed in God. For moth
ing external to ourselves can separate
us from the love of God, and this will
carry US triumphantly through all that
can be brought against us in life and
death.
In this spirit we see the checkered
history of the past year as ministering
to our gain, and we look forward to the
coming year without dread of what it
may contain, knowing that whatever
our lot may be we shall have advantage.
For the Christian has not only the
promise of the life that now is but also
of that which is to come.-N. Y. indie
| Dendent