If, instead of being loved, the people who lead good lives are persecuted by those who lead evil lives, then not only does this not shake their conviction in the righteousness of their lives, but, on the contrary, it serves as a clear confirmation of it.
But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you. Yes, and you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the nations. But when they deliver you up, do not be anxious how or what you will say, for it will be given you in that hour what you will say. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.
— Matthew 10:17–20
In all battles, if you await the issue, each fighter has prospered according to his right. His very death is no victory over him. He dies indeed; but his work lives, very truly lives. Fight on, thou brave true heart, and falter not, through dark fortune and through bright. The cause thou fightest for, so far as it is true, no farther, yet precisely so far, is very sure of victory. The falsehood alone of it will be conquered, will be abolished, as it ought to be: but the truth of it is part of Nature’s own Laws, co-operates with the World’s eternal Tendencies, and cannot be conquered.
— Carlyle
An obstacle on the path of the good, overcome by the efforts of my soul, renews my strength; that which stands in the way of the attainment of the good itself becomes good, and a bright path suddenly reveals itself where no way out was visible.
— Marcus Aurelius
“But he who endures to the end will be saved.”
How often it happens that a person loses hope and stops, or even turns back, when only a little more effort was needed to reach the goal.
So long as persecution is endured with a Christian humility, it results in an outcome that is the complete opposite of what the persecutors are trying to achieve. People want to hide a fire that has appeared in a forest, and, in order to extinguish it, they press it down to the ground with everything they can get their hands on—leaves, grass, brushwood, sticks—and the fire keeps flaring up more and more, and its light keeps spreading further and further.
Persecution, and therefore suffering, is a necessary condition for the fulfillment of Christian law. Just as abrasion reveals the degree of strenuous labor, the extent of our external suffering reveals the degree to which we follow Christ.
Persecution is valuable in that it undermines all artificial supports and brings out the true faith by which a human being lives.
The dangers of persecution lie not in suffering but in the temptation to feel pity for yourself and the resultant unkind attitude towards your persecutors.
Do not try to make people like you and do not be dismayed by their dislike of you. Oftentimes people are liked for bad reasons and disliked for good. It is not people that you should be trying to please, but God.
