Resolve, brothers and sisters, when you are in any sort of persecution, to face it with a full countenance. Like a nettle is the persecutor; touch it gently and it will sting you, but grasp it, and it hurts you not. Lay hold of those who oppose you, not with rough vengeance, but with the strong grip of quiet decision, and you have won the day.
Yield no principle, no, not the breadth of a hair of that principle. Stand up for every solitary grain of truth; contend for it as for your life…Shall these soft times, these gentle ages, take away your pristine valor—make you the coward sons of heroic fathers? No—if you are not called to the sufferings of a martyr—yet bear the spirit of a martyr! If you cannot burn as he did in the flesh, burn as he did in the spirit! If you have nothing to endure but the trial of cruel mockings, take it patiently, endure it joyfully; for happy are you, inasmuch as you are made partakers of the sufferings of your Divine Master! Never, I entreat of you, grow faint in your course, but bring more of the love of your hearts into the service of your lives.
Never yield one little bit of the Truth which God has committed to you! Take up the Cross and bear it! However weighty, however ignominious, carry it manfully! If the father is turned against the child, and the child against the father, weep over it and mourn it. If the husband is turned against the wife, and the wife against the husband, take care that it is not through your own fault. But if it is for Christ’s sake, bear it joyfully! Bear it with transport and delight; you are highly honored! You cannot wear the ruby crown of martyrdom and fire—that blazing diadem—but you have got at least a stray jewel out of it! Thank God for it and never shrink; never blush to suffer for His name’s sake.
~CH Spurgeon
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