The Green Forest tribune., 1903-04-11
s SUFFERING IS NECESSARY.
Gods Providence Seenin Adver-
 sity as We'll as in Prosperity.

Gods Providence Seen in Adver-
 sity as We'll as in Prosperity.
 In the batch of old papers re- gently brought to THE TRIBUNE office by M. H. Stevens is a por- tion of a copy of the Christian Patriot" published at Princeton, Ky, May 8, 1847.
 Among the many interestin g things contained in the sheet is the following, the authorship of which it credits to the Edinb burg Review:
 It is but too true, indeed, that not only is suff ering necessary to teach us our feebleness and dependence, and to abate the pride and confidence of our na- ture, but that we are too apt to forget, with the return of pros- perity, all the wise reflections and purposes we had made in sorrow. Jeremy Taylor likens us, in one of his many fanciful images, to the fabled lamps in the Tomb of Torentia, which "burned under ground for many ages together but which, as soon as ever they were brought into the air and saw brighter light, went out in darkness. "So long as we are in the retirements of sorrow, of want, of fear, of sickness, we are burning and shining lamps; but when God lifts us up from the gates of death, and carries us abroad in the open air, to converse with prosperity and temptations, we go out in darkness, and we cannot be pre- served in light and heat but by still dwelling in the regions of sorrow. D There is beauty, and to a certain extent, truth in the figure; but it by no means follows that continuous suffering would be good for man; on the con- trary, it would be as remote from producing the perfection of our moral nature, as unmitigated prosperity. It would be apt to produce a morbid and ghastly piety; the Upright lamps" of which Taylor speaks, would still be irradiating-only tomb Since the end of suffering, as 2 moral discipline, is only to enable us at least to bear unclouded happiness, what guarantee can we now have of it's beneficial ef- feet on us, except by partial ex- periments of our capacity of rec ollecting and practicing the les sons of adversity, in intervals of prosperity? is true that there is no more perilous ordeal through which man can pass-no greater curse which can be imposed on him, as he is at present consti- tuted-than that of being con- demned to walk his life long in>the sunshine of unfaded prosperity. His eyes ache with that too un- tempered brilliance-he is apt to be smitten with a moral coup de soleil. But it as little follows that no sunshine is good for us. He who made us, and who tu- tors us, alone knows what is exact measure of light and shade, sun and cloud, storm and calm, frost and heat, which will best tend to mature those flowers which are the object of this celestial hus- bandry; and which, when trans planted into the paradise of God, are to bloom there forever in amaranthine loveliness. Nor can it be without presumption that we essay to interfere with these processes; our highest wisdom IS to fall in with them. And cer- tain is that every man will find by experience that he has enough to do, to bear with patience and fortitude the real afflictions with which God may visit him, with out venturing to fill up the inter- ~vals in which He has left him ease, and even invites him to gladness, by a self imposed and artificial sorrow. cor by antici- pating sorrow.) Nay, if his mind be well constituted, he will feel that the learnino how 10 annly. in