Chapter XI.

FORTITUDE; OR DUTIES WITH REFERENCE TO UNAVOIDABLE EVILS AND SUFFERINGS.

There are, in almost every prolonged human experience, *privations and sufferings to be endured, disappointments to be submitted to, obstacles and difficulties to be surmounted and overcome*. From whatever source these elements of experience proceed, even if from blind chance, or from fate (which denotes the utterance or decree of arbitrary and irresponsible power), the strong man will brace himself up to bear them; the wise man will shape his conduct by them; the man of lofty soul will rise above them. But the temper in which they will be borne, yielded to, or surmounted, must be contingent on the belief concerning them. If they are regarded as actual evils, they will probably be endured with sullenness, or submitted to with defiance and scorn, or surmounted with pride and self-inflation. Even in the writings of the later Stoics, which abound in edifying precepts of fortitude and courage under trial, there is an undertone of defiance, as if the sufferer were contending with a hostile force, and a constant tendency to extol and almost deify the energy of soul which the good man displays in fighting with a hard destiny. If, on the other hand, physical evils are regarded as wise and benign appointments of the Divine love and fatherhood, the spirit in which they are borne and struggled against is characterized by tenderness, meekness, humility, trust, and hope. It is instructive in this regard to read alternately the Stoics and St. Paul, and to contrast their magnanimous, but grim and stern resignation, with the jubilant tone in which, a hundred times over, and with a vast variety of gladsome utterance, he repeats the sentiment contained in those words, “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” As ours is the Christian theory as to the (so-called) evils of human life, we shall recognize it in our treatment of the several virtues comprehended under the general title of Fortitude.