3.

I prayed, then, that you, through the whole present contest, remembering the great reward laid up in the heavens for the persecuted and reproached 'for righteousness' and for the Son of Man, may rejoice and exult and leap — as the apostles once rejoiced, 'counted worthy to be dishonored for his name.' And if ever you perceive a shrinking about your soul, let the mind of Christ in us say to her, who wills, so far as she can, to confound him too: 'Why art thou downcast, O soul? And why troublest thou me? Hope in God, for I shall confess to him.' And again — would that the soul be nowise troubled, but even before the tribunals and bare swords borne against the neck be guarded by God's peace that surpasses 'all mind,' and calm, reckoning that those absent 'from the body' go home to the Lord of all himself! But if we are not so great as to keep untroubled always — though the soul's trouble be not poured out nor shown to outsiders, that we may have room for defense before God, saying to him, 'My God, my soul is troubled toward myself.' The word also urges us to remember what stands thus in Isaiah: 'Fear not men's reproach, and by their contempt be not defeated.' For it is plainly absurd — with God manifestly present in heaven's motion and all therein, and in the works wrought on earth and sea by his divine craft, in all kinds of animals' and plants' births and constitutions and foods and growths — to wink and not see God, but turn the eyes to fear those who in a little shall die and be handed to their deserved judgment.