We had to pass through the village to reach the railway station. Everybody
almost was out to bid us good-bye. I did not want, for Connie's sake
chiefly, to have any scene, but recalling something I had forgotten to
say to one of my people, I stopped the carriage to speak to him. The same
instant there was a crowd of women about us. But Connie was the centre of
all their regards. They hardly looked at her mother or sister. Had she been
a martyr who had stood the test and received her aureole, she could hardly
have been more regarded. The common use of the word martyr is a curious
instance of how words get degraded. The sufferings involved in martyrdom,
and not the pure will giving occasion to that suffering, is fixed upon by
the common mind as the martyrdom. The witness-bearing is lost sight of,
except we can suppose that "a martyr to the toothache" means a witness of
the fact of the toothache and its tortures. But while _martyrdom_ really
means a bearing for the sake of the truth, yet there is a way in which any
suffering, even that we have brought upon ourselves, may become martyrdom.
When it is so borne that the sufferer therein bears witness to the presence
and fatherhood of God, in quiet, hopeful submission to his will, in gentle
endurance, and that effort after cheerfulness which is not seldom to be
seen where the effort is hardest to make; more than all, perhaps, and
rarest of all, when it is accepted as the just and merciful consequence
of wrong-doing, and is endured humbly, and with righteous shame, as the
cleansing of the Father's hand, indicating that repentance unto life which
lifts the sinner out of his sins, and makes him such that the holiest men
of old would talk to him with gladness and respect, then indeed it may be
called a martyrdom.
Pages:
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163