"Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill,
Complain thou not, my heart, for these
Bank in the current of the will."
The most blessed lives in the world are those that have borne the
burden of suffering. "Where, think you," asks James Martineau, "does
the Heavenly Father hear the tones of deepest love, and see on the
uplifted face the light of most heartfelt gratitude? Not where his
gifts are most profuse, but where they are most meagre; not within the
halls of successful ambition, or even in the dwellings of unbroken
domestic peace; but where the outcast, flying from persecution, kneels
in the evening on the rocks whereon he sleeps; at the fresh grave,
where, as the earth is opened, heaven in answer opens too; by the
pillow of the wasted sufferer, where the sunken eye, denied sleep,
converses with the silent stars, and the hollow voice enumerates in low
prayer the scanty list of comforts, the easily remembered blessings,
and the shortened tale of hopes. Genial, almost to a miracle, is the
soil of sorrow, wherein the smallest seed of love, timely falling,
becometh a tree, in whose foliage the birds of blessed song lodge and
sing unceasingly."
The truly happiest, sweetest, tenderest homes are not those where there
has been no sorrow, but those which have been overshadowed with grief,
and where Christ's comfort was accepted. The very memory of the sorrow
is a gentle benediction that broods ever over the household, like the
afterglow of sunset, like the silence that comes after prayer.
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