in good or bad fortune, not in joy or sorrow, not in health or
illness, but upon the perceptive attitude of mind which we can
apply to all experiences. Everything that comes from the hand of
God has the quality of which I am speaking; our business is to try
to disentangle it from the prejudices, the false judgments, the
severities, the heavinesses, with which human nature tends to
overlay it. Imagine a man oppressed by all the ills which humanity
can suffer, by shame and disease and failure. Can it be denied, in
the presence of the life of Christ, that it is yet possible to make
out of such a situation a noble and a beautiful thing? And that is
the supreme value of the example of Christ to the world, that He
displayed, if I may so speak, the instinct which I have described
in its absolute perfection. He met all humanity face to face, with
perfect directness, perfect sympathy, perfect perception. He never
ceased to protest, with shame and indignation, against the
unhappinesses which men bring upon themselves, by the yielding to
lower desires, by prejudice, by complacency; but He made allowance
for weakness, and despaired of none; and in the presence of those
darker and sadder afflictions of body and spirit, which it seems
that God permits, if He does not authorize, He bore Himself with
dignity, patience, and confidence; He proved that nothing was
unbearable, but that the human spirit can face the worst calamities
with an indomitable simplicity, which adorns it with an
imperishable beauty, and proves it to be indeed divine.