“Just when we think we’ve fixed the golden mean–
The diamond point, on which to balance fair
Life, and life’s lofty issues–weighing there,
With fractional precision, close and keen,
Thought, motive, word, and deed, there comes between
Some wayward circumstance, some jostling care,
Some tempers fret, some mood’s unwise despair,
To mar the equilibrium, unforeseen,
And spoil our nice adjustment!
Happy he Whose soul’s calm equipoise can know no jar,
Because the unwavering hand that holds the scales
Is the same hand that weighed each steadfast star–
Is the same hand that on the sacred tree
Bore for his sake the anguish of the nails.”
It would seem that anybody could keep still and quiet. It requires no exertion, we would say. Work is hard, but it ought to be easy to rest. It takes effort to speak; it ought to be easy just to be silent.
But we all know that few things are harder for most people than to be still. Our lives are like the ocean in their restlessness. This is one of the proofs of our immortality. We are too great to be quiet. A stone has no trouble in keeping still. A clam never gets nervous. The human soul was made for God and its very grandeur renders its repose and quiet, amid the things of earth the most difficult of all attainments.
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