human. Let what may be
said to the contrary, life is a mighty boon. When men bring in a
verdict of unsound mind in a case of suicide, the instinct may have
more to do with it than the order of evidence on which the verdict is
based. We have to conclude that a man was insane before he could lay
violent hands on himself. Look back upon our life, we who have
travelled some distance into it, and let us say whether so far we do
not account it a blessing to have lived and to be living. We have had
our hard lines, and we have known the pleasant places; we have had our
sorrows, and we have had our joys; we have been under the clouds, and
we have lived in the sunshine. Nay, I dare go further and say, that
for a day we have had of the former, we have had a week of the latter.

It is a narrow and unworthy conception of happiness to invest all our
chances of it in the accident of circumstances. There is some force in
the saying, that heaven is here or nowhere. If we have any thought of
happiness worth turning into a fact, our life may be filled with it
though the hardest possible circumstances be surrounding us. Not where
we are, but what we are, makes our much or little whether of good or
ill. It is an ungrateful proceeding to go through life consuming as
much as possible of the fruits of a gracious present, and yet with only
plaints and complaints about the legislation which tempers the
blessings with the little severity needed to teach us what the
blessings are.

Some one has remarked that it is the whole tragedy, and ultimately the
whole power of the Christian religion, that it is attacked from every
side. It is accused of faults that are hopelessly inconsistent with
each other. One day it is charged with making man too responsible; the
next, with not making him responsible enough. The truth is, that we
need not try to make man too responsible in order to make him
responsible enough. It has often been pointed out, that the Christian
religion is by turns optimistic and pessimistic. St. Paul is pessimist
enough where he says: "For I know that in me--that is, in my
flesh--dwelleth no good thing." But who so optimistic as the same
Apostle when he declares: "I can do all things through Christ which
strengtheneth me."

Much of the secret of it, under God, is in a cultivated and consecrated
will. Every matter, says Epictetus, has two handles, and you can
choose which handle you will take. Every man has in him som