d."

Thousands of men of great native ability have been lost to the world
because they have not had to wrestle with obstacles, and to struggle
under difficulties sufficient to stimulate into activity their dormant
powers. No effort is too dear which helps us along the line of our
proper career.

Poverty and obscurity of origin may impede our progress, but it is only
like the obstruction of ice or debris in the river temporarily forcing
the water into eddies, where it accumulates strength and a mighty
reserve which ultimately sweeps the obstruction impetuously to the sea.
Poverty and obscurity are not insurmountable obstacles, but they often
act as a stimulus to the naturally indolent, and develop a firmer fiber
of mind, a stronger muscle and stamina of body.

If the germ of the seed has to struggle to push its way up through the
stones and hard sod, to fight its way up to sunlight and air, and then
to wrestle with storm and tempest, with snow and frost, the fiber of
its timber will be all the tougher and stronger.

There is good philosophy in the injunction to love our enemies, for
they are often our best friends in disguise. They tell us the truth
when friends flatter. Their biting sarcasm and scathing rebuke are
mirrors which reveal us to ourselves. These unkind stings and thrusts
are often spurs which urge us on to grander success and nobler
endeavor. Friends cover our faults and rarely rebuke; enemies drag out
to the light all our weaknesses without mercy. We dread these thrusts
and exposures as we do the surgeon's knife, but are the better for
them. They reach depths before untouched, and we are led to resolve to
redeem ourselves from scorn and inferiority.

We are the victors of our opponents. They have developed in us the
very power by which we overcome them. Without their opposition we
could never have braced and anchored and fortified ourselves, as the
oak is braced and anchored for its thousand battles with the tempests.
Our trials, our sorrows, and our griefs develop us in a similar way.

The man who has triumphed over difficulties bears the signs of victory
in his face. An air of triumph is seen in every movement.

John Calvin, who made a theology for the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, was tortured with disease for many years, and so was Robert
Hall. The great men who have lifted the world to a higher level were
not developed in easy circumstances, but were rocked in the cradle of
d