sable condition through
which it is to be reached. Hence St. Paul's noble paradox
descriptive of the Christian life--"As chastened, and not killed; as
sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as
having nothing, and yet possessing all things."

Even pain is not all painful. On one side it is related to suffering,
and on the other to happiness. For pain is remedial as well as
sorrowful. Suffering is a misfortune as viewed from the one side,
and a discipline as viewed from the other. But for suffering, the
best part of many men's natures would sleep a deep sleep. Indeed, it
might almost be said that pain and sorrow were the indispensable
conditions of some men's success, and the necessary means to evoke
the highest development of their genius. Shelley has said of poets:

"Most wretched men are cradled into poetry
by wrong,
They learn in suffering what they teach in
song."

But the young man meeting with disappointments, as he is sure to do
in the beginning of his career, particularly if he be dependent on
himself, should take comfort from the thought that others who have
risen to success have had to travel the same hard road; and such men
have confessed that these trials, these bitter experiences, were the
most valuable of their lives.

Life, all sunshine without shade, all happiness without sorrow, all
pleasure without pain, were not life at all--at least not human
life. Take the lot of the happiest--it is a tangled yarn. It is made
up of sorrows and joys; and the joys are all the sweeter because of
the sorrows; bereavements and blessings, one following another,
making us sad and blessed by turns. Even death itself makes life
more loving; it binds us more closely together while here. Dr.
Thomas Browne has argued that death is one of the necessary
conditions of human happiness, and he supports his argument with
great force and eloquence. But when death comes into a household, we
do not philosophize--we only feel. The eyes that are full of tears
do not see; though in course of time they come to see more clearly
and brightly than those that have never known sorrow.

There is much in life that, while in this state, we can never
comprehend. There is, indeed, a great deal of mystery in life--much
that we see "as in a glass darkly." But though we may not apprehend
the full meaning of the discipline of trial through which the best
have to pass, we must have faith in the completeness of the de