bearing upon this subject, is the
fact, that while the disciples seemed to feel as though all redemption
for Israel was now hopeless, that process of redemption for Israel,
and for the world, was going on through the agency of those very events
which had filled them with dismay. Even as they were speaking, in tones
of sadness, about the crucified Christ, the living Christ, made perfect
for his work by that crucifixion, was walking by their side. Looking far
this side of that shadow of disappointment which then brooded over
them, we see all this, that then they did not see; but now is it with
ourselves, under the frequent shadows cast by more ordinary events? This
suggestion may afford us some profitable thoughts.

I need hardly say, in the first place, that man is continually inspired
by expectation. Every effort he makes is made in the conviction of
possibility and the light of hope. This is the heart of ambition and
the spring of toil. It is the balm which he applies to the wounds of
misfortune. It is the key with which he tries the wards of nature. And
from the morning of life to its last twilight he is always looking.
forward. The saddest spectacle of all--sadder even than pain, and
bereavement, and death--is a man void of hope. The most abject people
is a hopeless people, in whose hearts the memories of the past, and the
pulses of endeavor, and the courage of faith are dead, and who crouch by
their own thresholds and the crumbling tombstones of their fathers, and
take the tyrant's will, without an incentive, and without even a dream.
The most intense form in which misery can express itself is in the
phrase, "I have nothing to live for." And he who can actually say,
and who really feels this, is dead, and covered with the very pall and
darkness of calamity. But few, indeed, are they who can, with truth, say
this.

But if hope or expectation is such a vital element of human experience,
so does disappointment have its part in the mechanism of things, and,
as we shall presently see, its wise and beneficial part. For, after all,
how few things correspond with the forecast of expectation! To be sure,
some results transcend our hope; but how many fall below it,--balk
it,--turn out exactly opposite to it! Among those who meet
with disappointments in life, there are those who are expecting
impossibilities,--whose expectations are inordinate,--are more than the
nature of things will admit; or who are looking for a harvest w