Above all, however, there is one thought, and only one, capable of turning the balance, one thought which which has the power of transforming the heavy burden into a burden that is light, and this is that it is good, that the heavy burden is good for one. [...]
Suffering is a lesson full of danger; for, if we do not learn obedience --ah, then it is as terrible as if the most efficacious of medicines had the wrong effect! In such danger man needs help: he needs the help of God; else he learns not obedience. And if he learns not obedience then he may learn the worst corruption --learn a cowardly hopelessness, learn a quenching of the spirit; learn to damp down whatever fire of nobility is in him, learn perverseness and despair. But just because the lesson of sufferings is so dangerous, therefore we say, quite rightly, that in this school of sufferings we are educated for eternity; for in no other school is there such danger, but neither is there such a prize: the greatest danger and the greatest prize --but the greatest of prizes is eternity. [. . .]
Since it is the supposition of our discourse that a man before God is always guilty, this is the joy in it: that the fault is therefore with the man, and consequently there must always be something to be done, there must be tasks, and with the tasks a hope, that everything can and will be better, when he becomes better, more diligent, more prayerful, more obedient, more humble, more devout, more ardent in his love, more fervent in spirit. [. . .]
Tribulation is the way. This then is what is joyous: that it is not the peculiar property of the way to be strait and narrow, but it is the peculiar property of tribulation [a play on the dual meanings of the Danish word for narrowness/tribulation] to be the way. And so it follows, that tribulation must lead somewhere, that it must be a practicable road to a destination not beyond human power. [. . .]
According to the greatness of the danger, so there is given, we hope and believe, the courage from above, and even in dangers not so great there is still need of courage. And so, whoever thou art, if thou hast that which thou callest conviction (and sad indeed it were didst thou have none), and if it is required of thee to fight for it: then seek thou not the world's support and the support of men. For such support is treacherous enough sometimes to such a point (and even this is not the real point of danger) that it disappoints and fails us in the hour of greatest difficulty, but sometimes also (and this is the true danger) to such a point that when it is given freely it stiffles the good cause. For even as many a cause, it may be, has been lost because the support of the world was lacking, so too has many a cause been ruined because the world was allowed to help. Nay, but seek courage with God.
