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A fourth mark of the spiritual life, a fourth fruit of the Spirit, is long-suffering. And long-suffering is perhaps that power which enables us to suffer on, which will not let us become ruffled, or put back, or paralyzed, or overwhelmed by difficulties as they come upon us. And we do well to realize that we have to exercise long-suffering quite early in our spiritual life, in our very dealings with the great and good God Himself. We remember how in His mercy He is ever urging us to be strong. Sometimes we ourselves have wondered why in God's good providence we are given a work to do which is a special temptation to us. And at last the truth becomes apparent that God has some signal favour to bestow upon us; that He wishes us to recover, by using it, the power in some maimed limb, to make whole by painful exercise some impaired faculty. To walk upon it, to stretch it, to move it, with many a cry of anguish and many a secret groan, and then at last to feel a new strength in an unlooked-for department of life. Or further, it may be some distinguished grace, some pre-eminent honour, that He is waiting to bestow upon us; but He has to delay until He can see whether we can bear the preliminary cutting and carving which is to prepare our souls to receive it. Vae his qui perdiderunt sustinentiam: ["Woe to them that have lost the power of bearing!] and what will ye do when the Lord shall visit you?" (Ecclesiasticus 2:14.) And it is just the same with God's methods of working, which He consigns to our care, and puts as instruments into our hands. His methods seem terribly slow to our impatience, We have to deal with a system of work which of necessity demands much time, where planting and watering and maturing all must have their ordered course, where the bud precedes the flower and the flower the fruit, and forming has to develop into ripening, and ripening into full maturity. Roots are ugly things, and when they are buried the garden looks very bare. Sometimes it is covered with snow, or dried up with the frost, or pulverised with the east wind, or the growing plants are scorched by the sun or dashed with the wet. What a temptation it is to try and plant the bed with forced flowers, just to make a show while we are here; or to damage the tree that we may hasten its untimely fruit. Is it not a characteristic of the present day that we are all very impatient in our work? It is so in politics, everything must be done at once; it is so in religion, method after method is attempted and cast away, as if it were a worn-out garment almost before it has been used; it is so in education, give us results at any cost, and let competitive examinations settle everything. But if we are to work together with God, we shall need a great deal of patience. "You can hurry man," said Bishop Milman, "but you cannot hurry God." And if we are tempted to be impatient with God's methods of working, are we not equally tempted to grow out of heart, to be sullen and displeased with the character of the actual portion of work which is assigned to us? Truly it requires some degree of long-suffering if we aspire in any way, within or without, to work together with God. But this is not all. We shall need long-suffering also in our intercourse with our fellow-men. There is a want of refinement very often, as well as misunderstanding, which we have to deal with, coupled with injustice, misrepresentation, imputation of motives, or ingratitude. Ah! yes: there is no strain so continuous as that of helping the weak friend to climb. Every footstep has to be steadied as he laboriously ascends; he gets fatigued, he gets giddy, he disdains the use of the rope; perhaps he slips and falls; his constant stumbles seem to imperil our very existence. Shall we leave him? He keeps us back, he makes our progress slow; we cannot enjoy the prospect by the way, nor the delight of climbing; but yet it is a trust which we may not betray. He is given to us; we are, indeed, before God and angels and men, our brother's keeper. Alas! we are always trying to push away from us the responsibilities of this mediator-life. The priest, the man of wealth, the man of science, the politician — all are sometimes tempted to forget it. But this was the glory of the early Christian Church; it waited for the little children, the old, the helpless, the infirm, all which the busy empire would spurn from its hurried path. Do not let us think that we shall reach greater heights by neglecting those who, from the realms of duty or affection or simple circumstance, are crying out, "Wait for me." But all this will require the development within us of long-suffering. And yet further still, beside God and our neighbour, who each in their mysterious way demand the exercise of this virtue, there is self. We must learn to bear long with ourselves.

(W. C. E. Newbolt.)

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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,