we cling to him in the agony of our sorrow, and he goes down to walk
with us on the waters of the sea of death! As traditional sentiment,--as
a wholesome subject for school-composition,--we have spoken and written
of the weariness of the world-worn heart, and the frailty of earthly
things. But, O! when our hearts have actually become worn, and tried;
when we begin to learn that the things of this life are evanescent,--are
dropping away from us, and we slipping from them,--what inspiration of
reality comes to us in the oft-heard invitation, "Come unto me, all ye
that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest!" What a depth
of meaning flowing from the eternal world, in the precept we have read
so carelessly,--"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where
moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal!" Thus
the best results of life come from the defeats and the limitations that
are involved with it.

And, in all this, observe how disappointment is the instrument of higher
blessings. See how thus life itself suggests a higher good than life
itself can yield. And so the attitude of the disciples, after the
crucifixion, illustrates many experiences of our earthly lot. Those
incidents which perplexed and grieved them were securing the very
results they seemed to prevent. So, in our ordinary life, the things
that appear most adverse to us are often the most favorable.

I may say, indeed, that to any man who is rightly exercised
by it, disappointment always brings a better result. But this statement
requires that I should say, likewise, that the result of disappointment
depends upon the level and quality of a man's spirit. "One thing happens
alike to the wise man and the fool." But how different in texture and
substance is the final result of the event! Disappointment breaks down
a feeble and shallow man. There are those, again, whom it does not make
better,--in fact, whom nothing, as we can see, makes better. Everything
glides easily off from them. Now, it is a noble thing to see a man rise
above misfortune,--a moral Prometheus, submissive to the actual will of
God, but defying fate. But there are men whose very elasticity indicates
the superficiality of their nature. For it is good sometimes to be
sad,--good to have depth of being sufficient for misfortune to sink
into, and, accomplish its proper work. But the man who rightly receives
the lesson of disappointment, and improves by its disc