me to lie chiefly in the fact that it does for us what we so seldom have
the courage to do for ourselves. It sweeps away all the rubbish and dust
of life. In the blessed emptiness induced by this mental house-cleaning
we are able, often for the first time, to separate clearly the essential
from the unessential. In sickness soul and body demand instinctively
only that which is for each its most imperative necessity.
In the crucible of suffering the true essence of our character becomes
manifest. All our pitiable pretences are torn from us, leaving our
inherent self face to face with reality. It is a tremendous experience;
it must either break us or make us. It is for us to choose which it
shall be. Suffering is the ultimate test of character.
Yet as I write these words I find myself wondering if there is any one
ultimate test. As no two crystals react to the same solvent, so it may
be that no two hearts respond to the same probe. Of one thing,
nevertheless, I am certain: to each of us is applied at some time in our
lives that which constitutes for that individual soul the supreme trial
of its mettle.
I am frequently reminded, however, that there are countless people who,
instead of being purified and sensitized by physical pain, have been
destroyed or at least rendered sterile by it. This is undoubtedly true.
Whether we are to profit by suffering or not depends entirely on
ourselves. How then are we to transmute pain into privilege? Certainly
not through resignation, for there is no virtue without action. It may
only be the interior travail of the spirit, but to attain even the
initial step to spiritual, intellectual or material advancement
necessitates labor. So it is with the benefits of suffering. They are
there within the reach of all, but can only be obtained as the wage of
persistent endeavor.
Resignation is not merely inactive, it is positively harmful inasmuch as
it is a tacit acknowledgment that pain is in itself an evil, and to
believe that is to stultify its possibilities. For what we believe to be
evil, no matter how innocent in itself, becomes so by the corrosive
power of that belief.
It is a dogma of Christianity that disease is one of the punitive
consequences of original sin. Now punishment implies correction.
Therefore, if disease represents a fall from perfection, it also holds
within it the germs of a future perfection. Although theology teaches
sin as the inception of disease, yet if we consider only the immediate
cause of our physical disabilities we will find that although they are
frequently the result of breaking a moral law, they are quite as
frequently to be attributed to no fault of our own, and may even be the
emblem of sacrifice.
If so many fail to benefit through suffering, we must remember that only
a few of us are able to sustain the daily test of life. Every
experience, especially any great and unusual experience, is a fire
through which few pass unscathed. Beauty, charm, riches, personality,
even intellect, have each their separate temptation, their different
limitations.
It is so easy for the spirit to sleep contented within the soft prison
of a perfect body. Superabundant health and vitality, unless guided by
infinite wisdom, are as likely to cast us into the abyss of life as to
raise us to the summit. Power fosters pride, and charm is the
twin-sister of vanity. Life is a continuous trial of our strength, but
disease is not necessarily the supreme trial.
It was George Eliot who said: “There is nothing the body suffers the
soul may not profit by.”
XIX
CONCLUSION
Who best can suffer, best can do.
—_Milton._
We have seen that as mankind rises in the scale of civilization the body
becomes increasingly less important. Nevertheless, I wish it to be
clearly understood, that I do not maintain that it is preferable to be
ill than well, but only that each state has its own peculiar privileges,
which are rarely interchangeable.
Health and sickness are merely different roads to achievement. The earth
requires rain as well as sunshine; we need both tears and laughter;
navvies are necessary and so are philosophers.
You may therefore reasonably ask why, if suffering is indispensable to
humanity, doctors and sociologists should spend themselves and their
lives in attempting to banish it from the world?
Because, if pain is the gate through which we must pass to attain
certain experiences and realizations, to battle against it is
undoubtedly the road to others. To endure pain and to relieve pain are
both instrumental in freeing us from the prison of ourselves, and
freedom from self is the only real freedom. Moreover, whatever
ameliorates human conditions, whether serums or sanitation, free
concerts or fireless cookers, results in loosing us from the thraldom of
the body.
The race reaches toward an ideal of ultimate perfection, just as a plant
stretches upward towards the sun. Both are unattainable, yet all
activity would cease, if we demanded nothing less than absolute and
indestructible achievement. The tide flows only to ebb, the field must
be sown anew year after year; we build cities knowing that time will
eventually destroy them; we bear children doomed to death.
But after the ebb comes the tide, bringing ever new treasures to our
shores; the germ of spring lies hidden in the barren breast of autumn;
out of the ashes of vast cities still greater cities will arise, and
Death is but the portal of Life.
No physical disablement is a barrier to achievement. This is the
glorious fact which the illustrious men and women I have enumerated have
proved beyond the possibility of dispute. To cripple and hunchback, to
blind, deaf and dumb, to those chained to “a mattress-grave,” and to
those who have been mentally unbalanced, they have bequeathed this
precious legacy of Hope.
On the other hand we can no longer plead our infirmities as an excuse
for our weakness, our sterility or failure. For whatever may be our
disablement we can find in history a parallel debility triumphantly
transmuted into strength.
THE END
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
2. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as
printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.