During this life good is always mingled with evil. "Mourning taketh hold of the end of joy" (Prov. xiv. 13). The dangers that beset our natural life are numerous, serious, unavoidable." I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity and affliction of spirit" (Eccle. i. 14). In order to warn us against natural evils and give us power to resist them, God has implanted emotions or passions in man of aversion, discontent, fear, horror, hatred, resistance, in the same way as the corresponding instincts in animals. All these have a good purpose of their own. Our work of progress in this world demands that we fight against and reduce the multitude of evils as we can; and we are provided with natural impulses accordingly. These are either to be followed in part or resisted in part, according to the nature of the evils in question, and the recommendations of reason enlightened by grace. The useful effects of natural evils on us, and the different modes of encountering them, are exemplified in the life of Our Lord. Though God, He was not imperturbable or unaffected by evils. He was sensible to emotions of fear, sympathy, disappointment, and even anger and indignation. He either resisted evil, or avoided it, or endured it painfully, as occasion demanded. His sensibility to it led Him to relieve the miseries of the afflicted, or to fight courageously against wrong, or to exhibit patience and the penitential spirit in submitting to it. The Stoic insensibility to evils was no virtue ; natural emotions are not to be extinguished but regulated; the evils of life are useful as eliciting either our energy in resisting or our patience in enduring. Continue Reading.
