n that cannot, and does not even try, to help itself.
Resignation, in its true reading, is wholly another matter; it is
active, it is alive, it is conscious and intelligent and in joyful
co-operation with the will of God. It is no poor and negative mental
state; it is rich in vitality and in hope, as well, for in its absolute
identification of itself, this human will with the divine will, it
enters into a kingdom of untold glory, whose paths lead by the river of
life to the noblest and most exalted heights of achievement and of
undreamed-of joy.

If this be true of resignation, what shall be said of tribulation,--of
glorying in tribulation? A man awakens to find himself in poverty
instead of in wealth; his possessions suddenly swept away; or from
health, he, or some one whose life is still dearer to him than his own,
prostrated with illness; or to find himself unjustly accused or
maligned, or misunderstood, or to encounter some other of the myriad
phases of what he calls misfortune and tribulation. How is he to endure
it? How is he to go on, living his life, in all this pain, perplexity,
trial, or annoyance, much less to "glory" in this atmosphere of
tribulation? One is engaged, it may be, in a work for which it would
seem that peace of mind and joy and radiance were his only working
capital; his essential resources; and suddenly these vanish, and his
world is in ruins. Clouds of misapprehension envelop him round about,
and he can neither understand, himself, what has produced them, nor can
he, by any entreaty or appeal, be permitted the vantage ground of full
and clear explanation. And his energies are paralyzed; the golden glory
that enfolded his days investing them with a magical enchantment, has
gone, and a leaden sky shuts him into a gloomy and leaden atmosphere. It
is not only himself, but his work; not only what he may feel, but what,
also, he may not accomplish. And his work is of a nature that is not
only his own expression, his contribution to the sum of living, but one
which involves responsibility to others, and some way,--well or ill, as
may be,--it must be done. Shall he, _can_ he, "glory" in this
paralyzing pain and torture that so mysteriously has fallen upon
him,--whose causes do not, so far as he can discern, lie in his own
conduct, but in some impenetrable mystery of misapprehensions and
misunderstandings; a tangled labyrinth to which he is denied the clue?
Can he, indeed, facing all this torture and