It is difficult, no doubt, to acquire this habit, but this is what patience means in its highest sense. It is spiritual endurance, and its chief power consists not so much in adding to the number of our joys as in lessening the number of our sufferings. It is, therefore, a mark of power over one’s self and a means of power over others. With patience the outward success or failure of a man is a small thing compared with that success which he has achieved within himself. And that kind of success—the success which enables a man to laugh at failure and rise superior to discouragements and difficulties—that kind of success is a means of help and inspiration to all those about him.
If we consider the works of nature we shall see that nature’s most beneficent operations are the results of patience. Anything which grows must have time, and the best things in the world are generally those things which demand the longest time for their growth and development. The rank and short-lived weed reaches its full development in the shortest possible time, but the oak, which is to stand for centuries, demands the sunshine and the storm of years before its strength is fully developed.
Now, boys and girls, one of the hardest demands which nature makes upon people (especially upon young people, full of strength and energy and ambition) is to wait for the results of growth. No man becomes instantly strong morally; he must grow into strength. However great his ambition and his zeal may be, no man becomes a scholar in a year. It takes time, and lots of it. No man reaches at a single bound the full development of his whole nature. He grows into strength. A good soldier cannot be made without war, nor can a skillful seaman be made on land.
So in the race of life we must fight hard for all we get and be patient. Whatever else may be true, or may not be true, only patient and continued efforts—not hasty efforts—lead to success.
Before me lies a block of wood. It is full of knots. It seems to me I can never split it. But I bravely make the attempt. The first blow makes little impression. The axe springs back with a bound. Again and again I strike. Then a tiny crack appears. A few more licks—and the block yields. I have succeeded. Can you tell me which blow did the work? Was it not the first blow and the last and all between? You have tried something and failed. Try again. If you fail, try once more. And on and on, keep trying until you win the victory.