Patience is one of the marks of a high character. It might well be
called the habit of closing the mind against disagreeable and annoying
conditions. To acquire this habit so effectually as to hide even from
one’s self any sense of suffering or offense from contact with such
conditions is what the truly cultivated aim at. Life, it is true, is
full of trying things, but to let the mind dwell upon them only serves
to increase their offense to the feelings or the senses.
[Illustration: PATIENCE.]
There are people, of course, who are incapable of self-concentration,
and whose imagination, if left free to gad about, seems always to fix
upon and exaggerate every element of disturbance. They live in what is
called an elementary stage of moral discipline, and are perpetually
fretting about things they cannot help. They are never able to shut down
the will against any unpleasantness. They permit merely accidental
conditions to exercise a kind of tyrannical sway over them, which, if
their minds were once bent to the practice of putting up with things,
would cease to present any annoyance whatever.
It is difficult, no doubt, to acquire this habit, but this is what
patience means in its highest sense. It is spiritual endurance, and its
chief power consists not so much in adding to the number of our joys as
in lessening the number of our sufferings. It is, therefore, a mark of
power over one’s self and a means of power over others. With patience
the outward success or failure of a man is a small thing compared with
that success which he has achieved within himself. And that kind of
success--the success which enables a man to laugh at failure and rise
superior to discouragements and difficulties--that kind of success is a
means of help and inspiration to all those about him.
If we consider the works of nature we shall see that nature’s most
beneficent operations are the results of patience. Anything which grows
must have time, and the best things in the world are generally those
things which demand the longest time for their growth and development.
The rank and short-lived weed reaches its full development in the
shortest possible time, but the oak, which is to stand for centuries,
demands the sunshine and the storm of years before its strength is fully
developed.
Now, boys and girls, one of the hardest demands which nature makes upon
people (especially upon young people, full of strength and energy and
ambition) is to wait for the results of growth. No man becomes instantly
strong morally; he must grow into strength. However great his ambition
and his zeal may be, no man becomes a scholar in a year. It takes time,
and lots of it. No man reaches at a single bound the full development of
his whole nature. He grows into strength. A good soldier cannot be made
without war, nor can a skillful seaman be made on land.
So in the race of life we must fight hard for all we get and be patient.
Whatever else may be true, or may not be true, only patient and
continued efforts--not hasty efforts--lead to success.
Before me lies a block of wood. It is full of knots. It seems to me I
can never split it. But I bravely make the attempt. The first blow makes
little impression. The axe springs back with a bound. Again and again I
strike. Then a tiny crack appears. A few more licks--and the block
yields. I have succeeded. Can you tell me which blow did the work? Was
it not the first blow and the last and all between? You have tried
something and failed. Try again. If you fail, try once more. And on and
on, keep trying until you win the victory.