James 5:11 Behold, we count them happy which endure. You have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord… It was said that a garden once became jealous of a park which adjoined it, because of a certain wonderfully beautiful bed of flowers with which the border between them was graced. The garden prayed the husbandman that she might have a bed of flowers too. "Oh, but you cannot water it if you have it. You have no fountain; it would die." But the garden persisted: "Why could I not have a fountain put in?" The request was immediately granted. Axemen came in and hewed down trees; the sward was torn up with terribly large ploughshares; the garden groaned with pain, and hardly held still. Then the subsoil was probed for wandering and perilous roots, and the garden felt as if all its nerves were to quiver with unendurable agony. Then came men with spades, and channels of stone for drainage were laid; and by and by rocks were blasted with an awful roar of thunderbolts; and the garden screamed that it was aching with intolerable torments and lacerations. But nobody listened; there were nights that succeeded, concerning whose dreadful experiences that garden could never be made to speak in the after years. But one morning the surprise came; there was a rush of crystal spray in the air overhead, and the sunshine kindled it into rainbows. There was never a fountain like that fountain in any paradise of a prince. And the cool streams fell like gentle rain down on the bed. of tulips and roses, the blossoming branches and the flowering shrubs. There was never a glory of hue and perfume, of nodding plumes and beading coronals, never such a bed of flowers in any parterre of a princess, as that. The garden, in deep quiet had nothing to say; it was very tired. But things would not need to be done over again. You see it requires courage to bear these agonies of tearing; but when the fountain plays, and the plants flourish, and the gardener comes in for a visit, the garden forgets the anguish in the discovery that the gardener is glad — glad for her sake. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. |
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