The Tupelo journal., 1904-03-11
THE TEST OF ENDURANCE.
Characters Severest Test Is Bearing
Without Faltering the Common
Ills Of Our Daily Life.

wayside station, the dim outline of
some strong, faithful machinist may
be seen going from coach to coach,
striking each wheel in turn a ringing
blow with his hammer. They little
think, who ride there, says the Sunday
School Times, that, as each gong
like clang breaks on the silent air of
the murky night, it tells the story of
endurance, for better or for worse
endurance of the burden and the fric-
ton and the heat and the mighty toll
OF the rails. Hundreds of lives de-
pend upon a mans applying that test
with patience and care to every wheel.
All things that we really value are
things that have been tested. Every
article that we possess, every quail
ty and companionship that we hold
in dear and high regard, has beer SUBJ
mitted to some ~far-reaching, crucible
experience which has shown us where
worth lies.
And the connection between the two
between the worth and the testing
is closer than We often think. The
turning of the earth on it's axis and
the falling of it's smallest apple are
not more intimate than are these days
OF soul proof and life testing in all
the dear things that we love.
All life seems to sum itself up in
two deep and rich experiences, which
are not two, but rather twofold-en-
durance and achievement; what we
haUn hnrna ond what ,,o Lo..z .:I4
what we have suffered, and what we
have created.
There is nothing that men prize
more highly than things tested and
proved. The builder wants timbers
that are toughest and hardest, which
OF forest and field, the sun in summer
or the heat of the kiln. have made
compactest in fiber and grain. The
mason wants bricks that have felt the
hottest fire in the curing, and the
stone that has known volcanic heat.
Men cannot, however, determine this
as easily Of men as they can of things,
but they do it as well as they can. And
since they cannot pass upon thought
and quality at first hand, as they can
upon stratum and fiber and mass and
weight, they take what seems to them
a fair equivalent, and judge Of knowl-
edge and worth as they register them
selves in reputation or as they coin
themselves in deeds.
Yet, in spite of all this, we car go
terribly astray, and follow too far, to
our confusion and shame and loss. a
rule that is human and faulty and crude
at best. Do not let us make the mis-
take of supposing that God looks al
achievements as we do. The ali-re-
vealing question hat He will ask will
be, not so much what we have accom-
plished, but rather how much have we
endured.
Not that we should despise the
worlds effort to fill it's positions with
men whose worth has issued in we'll
known name and work. We know IFS
value too well. We know that, de-
spite the c%onfusions of a deranged
world, the good man is to be found
back of the good name; that a great
building points to an accomplished
builder, a beautiful picture to a gifted
artist. Achievement does express life
and beauty and worth. But there is
another life and deeper beauty ard
nobler worth hat cannot be uttered.
Do o let our interest in the arena
of achievement crowd down our inter-
est in Gods greater arena of endur-
ance. Says Paul Laurence Dunbar:
"Tis true enough that the laurel crown
Twines but for the victor's brow,
For many a hero has lain him down
With naught but the cypress bough.
There are gallant men in the losing fight,
And as gallant deeds are lone
AS ever graced the captured height
Or the battle grandly won."
We need, then, the warning of this.
For who is it that we most delight re-
honor? Is it not the daring explorer.
the brilliant engineer. the mighty
builder, the ingenious inventor. the
gallant officer, the gifted singer. artist
of lit~terateur-all of them victors in Wis
ible btatles? Let us honor them.
They have endured. 1t would be is-
noble not to do So. But let us also have
an eye on the men who walk obscure
ly in their rear, it may be in poverty
and pain, who in reality may be as far
above them as the heavens are above
the worm. Let us see this vision OF
the man whose soul is growing beau
tiful and great before God-great In
the highest sense of all, and made great
by the greatness of endurance.
There is a level on which we may
all meet without advantage. and strive
as one, where no accident of race or
time or mind or body favors the n or
shuts out the other. That level is the
arena of endurance.
Endurance vas the very soul of his
message to the C%orinthian Christians,
for that is the meaning Of those great
words of his: Far be it from me to
Jesus Christ" And it is this divining
word that divides, as no other can, his
life from his life after he took Christ
into it. Up to that vivid, memorable
hour, he had made it his chief bust
ness to inflict suffering or others, make
others endure; but from thenceforth he
took as his proud badge that despised
word which Calvary had made forever
glorious, the word endurance"
1t was a deep saying of Horace Bush
nell that, eff you would put character
to the severest test, see if it can bear
without faltering the common ills and
hindrances of our daily life"
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