e traveller, when
the sun and the wind tried which could make him take off his cloak; and
the sun did it. Some of us, I daresay, have found out that the faith
which gripped God when we felt we needed Him, because we had not
anything else but Him, is but too apt to lose hold of Him when fleeting
delights and apparent treasures come and whisper invitations in our
hearts. There are diseases that are proper to the northern, dark,
ice-bound regions of the earth. Yes! and there are a great many more
that belong to the tropics; as there is such a thing as sunstroke, which
is, perhaps, as dangerous as the cramping cold from the icebergs of the
north. Some of us should understand what that Scripture means: 'Because
they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.' Prosperity,
untroubled lives, lives even as the lives of those of the majority of
mankind now, have their own most searching trials of faith.

But on the other hand, if there are 'ships that have gone down at sea,
when heaven was all tranquillity,' there come also dark and nights of
wild tempest when we have to lay to and ride out the gale with a
tremendous strain on the cable. Our sorrows, our disappointments, our
petty annoyances, and the great irrevocable griefs that sooner or later
darken the very earth, are all to be classified under this same purpose,
'that the trial of your faith ... might be found unto praise and honour
and glory.' And so, I beseech you, open your eyes to the meaning of
life, and do not suppose that you have found the last word to say about
it when you say 'I am afflicted,' or 'I am at ease.' The affliction and
the ease, like two wheels in some great machine working in opposite
directions, fit with their cogs into one another and move something
beyond them in one uniform direction. And affliction and ease cooperate
to this end, that we might be partakers of His holiness.

I believe experience teaches the most of us, if we will lay its lessons
to heart, that the times when Christian people grow most in the divine
life is in their times of sorrow. One of the old divines says, 'Grace
grows best in winter'; and there are edible plants which need a touch of
frost before they are good to eat. So it is with our faith. Only let us
take care that the fire does not burn it up, as 'wood, hay, stubble,'
but irradiates it and glorifies it, as 'gold, silver, and precious
stones.'

III. Now a word, lastly, about the ultimate discovery.

'Might be found