The forces and the natures of all winds,
Gusts, storms, and tempests; when her keel plows hell,
And deck knocks heaven; then to manage her
Becomes the name and office of a pilot."

CHAPTER V.

USES OF OBSTACLES.

Nature, when she adds difficulties, adds brains.--EMERSON.

Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous
difficulties.--SPURGEON.

The good are better made by ill,
As odors crushed are sweeter still.
ROGERS.

Aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance while they grow;
But crushed or trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around.
GOLDSMITH.

As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.--YOUNG.

There is no possible success without some opposition as a fulcrum:
force is always aggressive and crowds something.--HOLMES.

The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the
more significant and the higher in inspiration his life will
be.--HORACE BUSHMILL.

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous
circumstances would have lain dormant.--HORACE.

For gold is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of
adversity.--SIRACH.

Though losses and crosses be lessons right severe,
There's wit there ye'll get there, ye'll find no other where.
BURNS.

Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens
it.--HAZLITT.

"Adversity is the prosperity of the great."

No man ever worked his way in a dead calm.--JOHN NEAL.

"Kites rise against, not with, the wind."

"Many and many a time since," said Harriet Martineau, referring to her
father's failure in business, "have we said that, but for that loss of
money, we might have lived on in the ordinary provincial method of
ladies with small means, sewing and economizing and growing narrower
every year; whereas, by being thrown, while it was yet time, on our own
resources, we have worked hard and usefully, won friends, reputation,
and independence, seen the world abundantly, abroad and at home; in
short, have truly lived instead of vegetating."

* * * * * *

[Illustration: JOHN BUNYAN]

"Sculptor of souls, I lift to Thee
Encumbered heart and hands;
Spare not the chisel, set me free,
However dear the bands.

* * * * * *

"I do believe God wanted a grand poem of that man," said George
Macdonald of Milton, "and so blinded him that he might be ab