PATIENCE ESSENTIAL TO ENDURANCE.

37. But, the writer tells us, the attainment of strength and victory calls for "all patience." We must have patience to endure the persistent persecution of the devil, the world and the flesh. Not only patience is required here, but "longsuffering." The apostle makes a distinction between the two words, regarding the latter as something more heroic. It is the devil's way, when he fails to defeat by affliction and trouble, to try the heart with endurance. He makes the ordeal unbearably hard and long to patience, even apparently without end. His scheme is to accomplish by unceasing persistence what he cannot attain by the severity and multitude of his temptations; he aims to wear out one's patience and to discourage his hope of conquering. To meet these conditions there is necessary, in addition to patience, longsuffering, which holds out firmly and steadfastly in suffering, with the determination: "Indeed, you cannot try me too severely or too long, even though the trial continue to the end of the world." True, knightly, Christian strength is that which in conflict and suffering is able to endure not only severe and manifold assaults of the devil, but to hold out indefinitely. More than anything else do we need to be strengthened, through prayer, with the power of God, that we may not succumb in such grievous warfare, but achieve the end.