in seeking
the good of others we find our own.

There are some natures so happily constituted that they can find good in
everything. There is no calamity so great but they can educe comfort or
consolation from it--no sky so black but they can discover a gleam of
sunshine issuing through it from some quarter or another; and if the sun
be not visible to their eyes, they at least comfort themselves with the
thought that it IS there, though veiled from them for some good and wise
purpose.

Such happy natures are to be envied. They have a beam in the eye--a beam
of pleasure, gladness, religious cheerfulness, philosophy, call it what
you will. Sunshine is about their hearts, and their mind gilds with its
own hues all that it looks upon. When they have burdens to bear, they
bear them cheerfully--not repining, nor fretting, nor wasting their
energies in useless lamentation, but struggling onward manfully,
gathering up such flowers as lie along their path.

Let it not for a moment be supposed that men such as those we speak of
are weak and unreflective. The largest and most comprehensive natures
are generally also the most cheerful, the most loving, the most hopeful,
the most trustful. It is the wise man, of large vision, who is the
quickest to discern the moral sunshine gleaming through the darkest
cloud. In present evil he sees prospective good; in pain, he recognises
the effort of nature to restore health; in trials, he finds correction
and discipline; and in sorrow and suffering, he gathers courage,
knowledge, and the best practical wisdom.

When Jeremy Taylor had lost all--when his house had been plundered,
and his family driven out-of-doors, and all his worldly estate had been
sequestrated--he could still write thus: "I am fallen into the hands of
publicans and sequestrators, and they have taken all from me; what now?
Let me look about me. They have left me the sun and moon, a loving wife,
and many friends to pity me, and some to relieve me; and I can still
discourse, and, unless I list, they have not taken away my merry
countenance and my cheerful spirit, and a good conscience; they have
still left me the providence of God, and all the promises of the Gospel,
and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them, too;
and still I sleep and digest, I eat and drink, I read and meditate....
And he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in
love with sorrow and peevishness, who loves all thes