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You all know what long-suffering means. It means the power to bear up under a burden — a power to endure — a power to resist pressure — the capacity to stand a tremendous strain. The idea of endurance is that which gives emphasis to the word. The ancients realized both the desirableness and the nobility of the quality, and the noblest among them set themselves to the task of acquiring it. They said, "Weakness is unmanly; it is ignoble. Strength is magnificent — is godlike. We will be strong. We will he braced so as to resist all pressures. Though an avalanche fall on us, though we stand in the very path of it, yet we will not be moved from our foundations." They said, "Pain shall not make us groan. Danger shall not appal. Peril shall not intimidate. The shocks and ills of life shall not disturb our equanimity. Bereavement and loss may come; but they shall not jostle us from the fine poise of perfect self-control." The extent of their success showed what human will can do. Men called them Stoics. They called themselves Stoics. The philosopher Zeno was the master of this school. To him many disciples flocked. They were blown to the stern severity of his presence by the ills and adversities of life, as ships are blown by tempests into harbours encircled by mountains, and whose narrow entrances are guarded by immovable cliffs. He taught them that men should be free from passion; unmoved by joy or grief; and that they should submit without complaint to the unavoidable necessities by which, as he supposed, all things were governed. This, I believe, was the nearest approach to what is known in Christian ethics as long-suffering, that the ancients made. It is easy to discern how far they climbed, and yet how near the base of the majestic pyramid of Christian serenity, amid the storms of trouble, they remained. They had the right idea, hut they did not have the Divine help. They relied on themselves, and hence their inspiration was insufficient. Their stoicism was not the upspringing of a Divine patience in their soul, or the light of a Divine illumination shining into their minds, but was only the result of human determination. Their long-suffering was only the discipline of the nerves and the muscles. To endure when one has lost his sensibility, is taking the very virtue from endurance; but to bear up against trouble to which one is keenly sensitive; to be resigned to losses that divide the very life, so to speak, and rend it asunder; to be patient in the face of provocation strongly felt; to endure what taxes the highest forces in one's life — not because of a sullen faith that you cannot escape them if you would, but because of a sublime trust which supplies you with a feeling that you would not escape them if you could — this is the triumph of Christian teaching. Herein is the Christ seen superior to Zeno, and the marvellous beauty of the work of the Spirit apprehended. The question, therefore, naturally at this point arises: How does the Spirit accomplish this work? By what process of development is this effect produced? Is it of the mind? Is it of the soul? Or is it of both conjoined? I find God everywhere — in the works of nature, etc. But, beyond what I find Him in the works of Nature, I find Him in myself; not in that part of myself which is material, which the trees on the hills outlive, and on the grave of which the sun will some day look and the stars will some night shine; but in that part of me which is immaterial, beside whose life the life of the tree is as nothing, and which shall live on and on when the sun, which now wheels his sure course above us, shall have set for ever; and when, for aught I know, the stars themselves, which now make the heavens glorious by night, shall be quenched in their every beam. I find Him most, I say, within my soul; yea, in the works of that Spirit of whose fruit I am speaking; in the energies of its puissant action; in the conservative pressure of its guidance; in the fine enlightenment of its illumination; in the life-giving quickening of its vitalising touch, and in the sanctifying influence of its presence. I find Him, I say, most of all in my spirit; and because of the benevolence of His operation, my spirit loveth the Spirit that moveth it aright, and worships at the throne which is white because it symbolizes a power which is innocent. And to those who tell me that the works of the Spirit are mysterious, I say: Not so. They are plain as the work of the day when the flowers open on the hills; plain as the movement of the white clouds when the force which eye cannot see rolls their snowy formation upward; plain as the power of love which gives, when it is apprehended by the love which receives. Let us answer, then, the interrogation as to how the Spirit develops the capacity of long-suffering in the soul? How does He make man able to bear losses, disappointments, vexations, bereavements, and all the ills that flesh is heir to? We answer, that the Spirit accomplishes this effect by teaching us the relative value of things; and this I will illustrate. Take, e.g., the matter of wealth. Who of you that are wealthy could see your wealth pass from your hands without a murmur? Who of you could endure the loss of your gains — the gains of honourable and lifelong toil — with patience? And who of you could see the noble properties which you have inherited from the industry and affection of the past taken from your con. trol, and pass from the ownership of your name with equanimity? In how many Gases do cheerfulness and patience decline with the decline of profits! In how many cases have men who were rich in this world's goods, when their riches have suddenly vanished, committed suicide, as if all that made life desirable had gone with their treasures! But if the Spirit of God, dear friends, has brought true enlightenment to the mind; has given it discernment as to the comparative value of things; has brought the next world into conjunction with this, and made one to see the lasting glory of the one and the evanescent splendour of the other; the man, I say, in whom this blessed work has been wrought out can see his wealth depart without loss of courage, of patience, or of hope. For he knows that what is taken, looked at in the large way and viewed in the light of eternity, was not essential to his nature. He knows that his character is independent of it. He knows that it was but an accident, collateral to his life, and not the true life itself. And he realizes the affirmation contained in the question of the Saviour when He exclaimed: "Is not the life more than meat, and the body more than raiment?" And thus were they enabled to endure the deprivation without murmuring. Thus was the sublime element of long-suffering developed in them, and the fruit of the Spirit amply realized. I might illustrate farther. I have seen those to whom health was most desirable, lose it, and yet through all their sickness be upheld by the thought implanted in their minds, and ripened into a conviction by the Spirit, that they would soon enter into a realm where sickness is unknown, into which pain never enters, and where health is the only expression of existence. We have seen the beautiful lose their beauty; and yet, though they knew that the loveliness of the flesh had left form and feature for ever, they bore their loss with sweetest patience — with cheerfulness, even, as if they had lost but a trifle, because that within them was being born a loveliness that should never fade, and beauty which once possessed in the heavens would never depart. Ay, and we have seen men and women stand over coffins, in which lay the form once inhabited by their darling, without a tear. We have seen them stand on the edge of the grave and look into the darkness of death, as into a great sunrise, because they knew by discernment between the mortal and the immortal that their loved ones had only passed on and gone up, and that their feet as they climbed the sky-tending path had left the radiance of their ascension to light them upward to a happy and endless reunion when they should be called to go Thus do we see how it is by enlightenment of the mind and the soul as to the comparative value of things, that the Spirit worketh as one of its fruits the capacity of long-suffering, the capacity to bear without murmuring, to endure without complaint, and in the midst of grief live sustained by consolations.

(W. H. Murray, D. D.)

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KJV: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

WEB: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,