Patience may be said to have its perfect work, when it withstands a great, sudden and extraordinary affliction without being shaken. Uncommon faith is necessary for such an exercise as this. Indeed who has not cause to join in the prayer, _Lead us not into temptation!_ Strong Christians are the persons to whom this forefront of the battle is reserved; to them "it is _given_ in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake." Phil. i. 29. It is _Job_, the "perfect man," who is carried through the unexampled conflict. And the early believers to whom James addressed the words of the text, were exposed to evils such as happily we know nothing of. Yet they needed the exhortation. Patience has its perfect work, when it does not give way but holds out, however long may be the trial. Even weakness may sustain a momentary attack, and pungent anguish may be borne, if it be soon over. But to have day after day of pain, and night after night of fearful watching; to lie down heavy, yet hoping for no alleviation in the morning; to be wounded again and again, and find increasing years bring new losses and deeper sorrows;--this has been the lot of some who were God's children, and concerning whom it might well be said, that though the outer man perished, the inner man was renewed day by day. No man can number the cases of hopeless disease, tending incurably to certain and painful death, which occur in every age, and that among true believers. Christ's confessors have, in more periods of the church than one, spent large parts of their best years in prison. Millions have borne all the complicated ills of poverty all their days. And those who have survived to old age, have found it often one long disease. All these have had "need of patience," and would not have experienced its perfect work, if they had fainted in the day of adversity. I can never forget a Christian woman, eminent for spiritual joys, who was confined to her bed, with a wasting and at times excruciating disease, for about twenty years. Let not frivolous or superficial professors flatter themselves that those fair-weather graces which they boast of now, will stand them in stead when long storms begin to howl. Unusual supports from the very hand of the Spirit are necessary, against such conjunctures; and which of us can be certain that such shall not befall himself? Patience has a _perfect work_, when it grows to be an _abiding habit of the soul_. This cannot be, except by repeated acts of faith, submission and hope, reiterated till they are like a second nature. Such endurance rests on settled principle, and is an eminent work of the Holy Spirit. There are few more noble characters we can give of any, than when we say of a believer, _He is habitually patient_. The character is rare, but we are invited to attain it.