ecessary to
it as long summers. It is its half-century's struggle with the
elements for existence, wrestling with the storm, fighting for its life
from the moment that it leaves the acorn until it goes into the ship,
that gives it value. Without this struggle it would have been
characterless, staminaless, nerveless, and its grain would have never
been susceptible of high polish. The most beautiful as well as the
strongest woods are found not in tropical climates, but in severe
climates, where they have to fight the frosts and the winter's cold.

Many a man has never found himself until he has lost his all.
Adversity stripped him only to discover him. Obstacles, hardships, are
the chisel and mallet which shape the strong life into beauty. The
rough ledge on the hillside complains of the drill, of the blasting
which disturbs its peace of centuries: it is not pleasant to be rent
with powder, to be hammered and squared by the quarryman. But look
again: behold the magnificent statue, the monument, chiseled into grace
and beauty, telling its grand story of valor in the public square for
centuries.

The statue would have slept in the marble forever but for the blasting,
the chiseling, and the polishing. The angel of our higher and nobler
selves would remain forever unknown in the rough quarries of our lives
but for the blastings of affliction, the chiseling of obstacles, and
the sand-papering of a thousand annoyances.

Who has not observed the patience, the calm endurance, the sweet
loveliness chiseled out of some rough life by the reversal of fortune
or by some terrible affliction?

How many business men have made their greatest strides toward manhood,
and developed their greatest virtues when reverses of fortune have
swept away everything they had in the world; when disease had robbed
them of all they held dear in life! Often we can not see the angel in
the quarry of our lives, the statue of manhood, until the blasts of
misfortune have rent the ledge, and difficulties and obstacles have
squared and chiseled the granite blocks into grace and beauty.

Many a man has been ruined into salvation. The lightning which smote
his dearest hopes opened up a new rift in his dark life, and gave him
glimpses of himself which, until then, he had never seen. The grave
buried his dearest hopes, but uncovered in his nature possibilities of
patience, endurance, and hope which he never before dreamed he
possessed.

"Adversity