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If he continually chastens his language and style, or exculpates himself from mistakes, it is the same impulse which prompts his passionate desire for cleanliness and brightness, of the home and of the body. He has a violent dislike of stuffy air and smelly substances. He regularly takes a roundabout way to avoid a malodorous lane; he loathes shambles and fishmongers' shops.
As soon as they had entered these cheerless rooms, and were alone, the king prostrated himself upon his knees, with his family clinging around him, and gave utterance to the prayer, "Thy trials, O God! are dreadful. Give us courage to bear them. We adore the hand which chastens, as that which has so often blessed us. Have mercy on those who have died fighting in our defense."
In this feeling, his charming wife coincided; both probably encouraging a secret interest in the former, in consequence of the solitary hours that had been passed there by the young husband, while his anxious partner was far away. "There is no gloom on earth, for God above Chastens in love; Transmuting sorrows into golden joy Free from alloy.
Love dareth and endureth all things, magnifies and lessens, softens and hardens, loosens and binds, establishes for itself new worlds, fabricates for itself new values, chastens, humbles, makes weak, makes strong. Sim Gage never before had known how merciless, how cruel all this may be. He was in love. With all his heart and life and soul he loved her, right or wrong.
This quality of the spirit both betokens and embodies power, and power governs the universe. Its power is not that of the storm that harries and devastates, but rather that of the sunshine that fructifies, purifies, chastens, and ripens.
The key to the difficulties of most discussed and unsettled questions is commonly in their undiscussed parts: they are like the background of a picture, which looks obvious, easy, just what any one might have painted, but which, in fact, sets the figures in their right position, chastens them, and makes them what they are.
He observes in a general way that "those who obey God are saved, while those who rebel against Him perish," but his reference is to this life, and not to a future one. He also says that those whom God destines for some great part, He first chastens by suffering and toil. But perhaps his most original contribution will be found in the following paragraph:
And although, since our arrival here, his afflicting hand has been laid heavily upon me, still I would speak only of his goodness. For when he afflicts and chastens his children, it is in loving kindness and tender mercy. It is not for his pleasure, but for their profit, that they may be partakers of his holiness. But if he has been good to me, he has been doubly so to your and my dear Elizabeth.
I read the Financial News to him after dinner every day, and I know all about stock and Consols and those American railways which are perpetually rising and falling. One of them went wrong last week, and Ezra swore, and Mr. Girdlestone said that the Lord chastens those whom He loves. He did not seem to like being chastened a bit though. But how delightful this is!
That current of new life chastens them while they contend against it. Weaker minds fail to perceive the change: the clearest minds abandon themselves to it. To feel the change everywhere, yet not abandon oneself to it, is a situation of difficulty and contention.
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