Contentment
I. THE GREAT LESSON. "I have learned," etc. Man might very correctly be distinguished as the discontented animal. 1. We are not content with life in its severer aspects.(1) We do not know how to be abased, neither are we instructed to be hungry. In the fields and woods we find organic life most responsive to changing environment — the spreading tree at the first chill beginning to modify its leaf, to retrench its branchery, to economize its flower; the bird of the orient at the first scent of a less genial air preparing to sacrifice in size or ornament to adjust itself to an altered sphere; but man rebels to accept a dress less rich or resources less abundant.(2) The apostle had learned this lesson of accepting adversity with noble cheerfulness. ( 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 ; 2 Corinthians 6:9-10 ). How immense the distance between this and stoicism. That with its insensibility and hopelessness is the confession of inability to deal with the problem of suffering. Thous...