And our very griefs and disappointments--Have they been useless to
us? Surely not. We shall have gained, instead of lost, by them, if
the Spirit of God be working in us. Our sorrows will have wrought in
us patience, our patience experience of God's sustaining grace, who
promises that as our day our strength shall be; and of God's tender
providence, which tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and lays on
none a burden beyond what they are able to bear. And that experience
will have worked in us hope: hope that He who has led us thus far
will lead us farther still; that He who brought us through the trials
of youth, will bring us through the trials of age; that He who taught
us in former days precious lessons, not only by sore temptations, but
most sacred joys, will teach us in the days to come fresh lessons by
temptations which we shall be more able to endure; and by joys which,
though unlike those of old times, are no less sacred, no less sent as
lessons to our souls, by Him from whom all good gifts come.
We will believe this. And instead of inquiring why the former days
were better than these, we will trust that the coming days shall be
better than these, and those which are coming after them better still
again, because God is our Father, Christ our Saviour, the Holy Ghost
our Comforter and Guide. We will toil onward: because we know we
are toiling upward.
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