If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small
The Christian failing in business
There are such failures.
Christianity does not secure its disciples against misfortune and calamity. It has need of trouble. While it could not help it always without a constant miracle, it does not always help it when it can. There is a tendency in religion to promote worldly prosperity. Most of the conditions of secular success are improved by the principles and habits of spirituality. It quickens the intellect, gives calmness and self-possession to the feelings, fosters industry and diligence, creates character and credit. Many a man may be found who has been made, in this sense, by godliness. Some Christians never get on. They try many schemes, with one sorrowful result.
I. Christianity should preserve from despondency in failure. There is a tendency in trouble to dispirit. It may be checked by the force of natural energy of heart. The greater number of men are apt to sink under disappointment. Many cannot row against the tide. The evil of this depression is great. In relation to the worldly business. The man is as one possessed with a spirit of defeat. There is no ingenuity to plan; no vigorous employment of offered opportunities. This despondency affects other things. Begun in business, it extends to all departments of feeling and activity. Christianity tends to check this, because it limits the sphere of failure. It also changes its character. It teaches us that if we fail it may be the means of our greater success. The prostration, the sorrow, the want, may be the discipline of life everlasting. Sometimes the failure may be traced to the Christian’s own fault. Then these considerations are inapplicable. But then the evil may be overruled for good.
II. Christianity should preserve from irritation in failure. If the timid are most in danger of despondency, the proud are most in danger of exasperation. And who is so free from pride as not to be in danger of this? Failure may easily excite the evil passions of the soul, sour the temper, and arouse to anger and to wrath. If a man were only irritated against himself, there might not be much amiss. But the danger is nearly all the other way. The failing man is often found cherishing a wrong temper towards his fellows. To check this evil Christianity begets humility, and produces a spirit of benevolence.
III. Christianity should preserve from dishonesty in failure. Want is a temptation to dishonesty. It is not an excuse for it. Many who never had a thought that was not honourable have fallen into sin when they fell into trouble. And even when the trouble has been much less than entire failure. There is temptation to do wrong in order to evade, or conceal, or repair misfortune. Making us to love truth and equity, Christianity connects our self-respect with these principles. And, as Christians, we should be supremely concerned for the moral honour of Christianity. (A. J. Morris.)
Small strength
I. The occasion referred to. “The day of adversity.”
1. Reverse of fortune--poverty and want.
2. Bereavement.
3. Sickness.
4. Persecution.
5. Temptation.
II. The action reproved. “ If thou faint.” Not the suffering of pain or the feeling of sorrow, but the excess of an allowable feeling.
1. When we yield to impatience, entertain hard thoughts of God, and distrust His goodness.
2. When we are so absorbed by adversity as to forget past prosperity.
3. When we yield to sorrow so far as to preclude necessary exertion.
4. When it causes us to yield to unholy methods in order to extricate ourselves from the difficulty. The Jews appealed to Egypt.
III. The fault explained. “Thy strength is small.”
1. Bodily.
2. Morally.
3. Spiritually.
(1) Smallness of faith.
(2) Weakness of hope.
(3) Deficiency of love.
(4) Lack of courage.
(5) Want of humility.
IV. The remedy.
1. Call into exercise the strength you have. “To him that hath,” etc.
2. Cherish higher thoughts of God.
3. Wait at the throne of grace. (J. Bunting.)
Susceptible character
The wych-elm manifests the approach of winter earlier than any other tree. It becomes ruined and denuded by a touch of the frosty air, and contributes no splendour, no beauty to our autumnal scenery, as its leaves curl up, become brown, and flutter from their sprays, as early, when growing in exposed situations, as the middle of September. This character of itself marks a difference from the common elm, which preserves its verdure, except from accidental causes, long after this period, and with a fine mellow yellow hue, contributing a full share with other trees to the character and splendour of autumn. The wych-elm is an emblem of the susceptible, tender human character. The soul of such a man is highly sensitive to all external impressions. The first frosty touch of a great sorrow shakes his life to its centre. Men of a more robust type are chastened by sad events; and, mellowed by chequered experiences, live on to the tranquil maturity of their existence. But he, unfortunately, cannot face the rough blasts of adversity, and perishes at once under their cruel, chilling influence. Even the cold breath of slander sometimes bears for him a sentence of death. (Scientific Illustrations.)
Flourishing upon the unpromising
Humming-birds, colibris, and their brothers of every hue, live with impunity in the fearful forests where tropical nature, under forms oftentimes of great beauty, wages her keenest strife in those gleaming solitudes where danger lurks on every side--among the most venomous insects, and upon those most mournful plants whose every shade kills. One of them (crested, green, and blue), in the Antilles, suspends his nest to the most terrible and fatal of trees, to the spectre whose fatal glance seems to freeze your blood for ever, to the deadly manchineal. It is this parroquet, which boldly crops the fruits of the fearful tree, feeds upon them, assumes their livery, and appears, from its sinister green, to draw the metallic lustre of its triumphant wings. Nature endows the birds, as she also endows men, with a marvellous capacity for accommodation to circumstances. Beautiful birds are not made out of what we should consider wholesome food, and beautiful characters are not made out of the choice events of history. Nature supplies us with an appropriative power whereby we transmute everything to the purposes which she intends to serve. We know to what splendid purposes genius has been able to turn poverty, jails, cruelty, persecution. Some of the finest characters in history have been formed by and flourished upon these unpromising elements. The bird does not take the poison and submit to death; it transmutes it into life and beauty. The hero does not let circumstances subdue him; he makes circumstances subserve the growth of his character. (Scientific Illustrations.)
The culture that gives strength
If you were to hear some men’s experience, you would think that they grow as the white pine grows, with straight grain, and easily split; for I notice that all that grow easy, split easy. But there are some that grow as the mahogany grows, with veneering knots, and all quirls and contortions of grain. That is the best timber of the forest which has the most knots. Everybody seeks it, because, being hard to grow, it is hard to wear out. And when knots have been sawn and polished, how beautiful they are. There are many who are content to grow straight, like weeds on a dunghill; but there are many others who want to be stalwart and strong like the monarchs of the forest, and yet, when God sends winds of adversity to sing a lullaby in their branches, they do not like to grow in that way. They dread the culture that is really giving toughness to their soul and strength to its fibre. (H. W. Beecher.)