CRITICAL ANALYSIS.

The literal meaning of vroμovǹ is remaining behind, or remaining in the house; i.e. abiding,-das zurückbleiben, zuhausebleiben. (Passow.) Hence constancy, stability, steadiness. "Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding." (1 Chron. xxix. 15.) The Septuagint here uses iroμovǹ to denote stability, the opposite of that which is transitory and fleeting. In the text De Wette renders Toμov by Standhaftigkeit, steadfastness. It is something more than submissiveness, by which Isaac Taylor defines it. Patientia denotes the quality of bearing or enduring. Cicero applies it to the endurance of hunger and cold.

PATIENCE.

And to temperance PATIENCE.-2 PETER i. 6.

BEHOLD We count them happy which endure. "He that endureth to the end shall be saved." This uncomplaining and inflexible endurance is Patience; literally "a remaining under," or abiding in the place and circumstances of duty to which we are called; bearing up under labours, and difficulties, and trials, and conflicts, and sorrows, calmly and resolutely awaiting the end, in God's own time and way. "If we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." "We desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end; that ye not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." Here continuance in faith and endurance under trial

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be

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constitute the patience of the saints. Warning the Hebrews against drawing back or wavering in their profession because of trials, the apostle says, "Cast not away your confidence;" forsake not that trust in Christ which you have thus far maintained; cast not away that sheet-anchor of hope which has held you through so many storms; "For ye have need of patience, that, after have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise." "Behold," saith James, "the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." Abraham, "after he had patiently endured" wandering, affliction, exile, "obtained the promise." "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him." The prophet Jeremiah, in his Lamentations, while bewailing his own sins and the sins and calamities of his people, yet exhibits the virtue of patience when he says, "The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. . . . It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." And David, when compassed about with evildoers, and threatened by the pride and prosperity of the wicked, thus exhorts the righteous to patience. "Commit thy way unto the Lord;

NOT INSENSIBILITY.

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trust also in him. ... Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him."

These examples will serve to bring out the general signification of the term patience as used in the Scriptures. We pass to consider

I. THE ELEMENTS OF A TRUE CHRISTIAN

PATIENCE.

II. THE PLACE AND VALUE OF PATIENCE IN
THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER.

I. In analyzing patience into its elements, we must view it both upon the negative and the positive side. Patience does not imply a want of sensibility to suffering, sorrow, or wrong. A North American Indian would think it unmanly or cowardly to betray a consciousness of pain; to utter a cry or shed a tear for any physical suffering. There is possible such a schooling of muscle and nerve, and such a stiffening of the will through pride or selfdetermination, that there shall be no wincing under the severest torture. Or where this impassiveness of the animal nature does not exist, a desperate course of life may have so deadened the sensibilities that there is no apparent yielding under pain. The criminal who has hardened himself to deeds of blood may seem as insensible to his fate as the stone he hammers

in the jail-yard, and may even tread the scaffold with an air of bravado. But, though no cry of pain escape him, no murmuring at his fate, though he wear out uncomplaining years in the penitentiary, or bend his neck to the gallows' noose with careless unconcern, it would be absurd to speak of him as patient under suffering.

So intense were the sufferings of Jesus upon the cross, that his physical frame sank beneath them in less than half the time commonly allotted for the cross to do its work; such, too, was his inward agony that his cry pierced the heavens: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" Yet one of the thieves at his side, enduring the same physical torture, could even join in the derisions of the crowd below, and rail at him, saying, "If thou be Christ, save thyself and us." But we feel that this unflinching criminal was a hardened desperado, and that the sensitive, quivering, moaning sufferer at his side was the Lamb of God, the dignity of whose patience is not impaired in our thought by his visible anguish. We cannot associate with Jesus upon the cross the idea of weakness or of faltering. He suffers keenly, and his pure and sensitive soul manifests his suffering; indeed, had he gone through the closing tragedy of his life in a mere mechanical