2. Moreover, we are not required to be cheerful while we shake off all sense of bitterness and sorrow. The saints could not find any patience in cross bearing if they were not disturbed by sorrow and harassed with grief. For instance, if there were no hardship in poverty, no agony in sickness, no distress in insults, no horror in death, what courage or moderation would it be to regard these afflictions with indifference? But since each of them by its own bitterness bows down our hearts as a matter of course, the faithful will show their real strength by resisting and overcoming their grief,
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