somebody who shall make us do the best we can."

Jesus was the truest of friends. He never tried to make the burden
light, the path smooth, the struggle easy. He wished to make men of
his apostles,--men who could stand up and face the world; men whose
character would reflect the beauty of holiness in its every line; men
in whose hands his gospel would be safe when they went out as his
ambassadors. He set for each apostle a high ideal, and then helped him
to work up to the ideal. He taught them that the law of the cross is
the law of life, that the saving of one's life is the losing of it, and
that only when we lose our life, as men rate it, giving it out in
love's service, do we really save it.

It is not easy to make a man. It is said that the violin-makers in
distant lands, by breaking and mending with skilful hands, at last
produce instruments having a more wonderful capacity than ever was
possible to them when new, unbroken and whole. Whether this be true or
not of violins, it certainly is true of human lives. We cannot merely
grow into strength, beauty, nobleness, and power of helpfulness,
without discipline, pain, and cost. It is written even of Jesus
himself that he was made perfect through suffering. There was no sin
in him; but his perfectness as a sympathizing Friend, as a helpful
Saviour, came through struggle, trial, pain, and sorrow. Not one of
the apostles reached his royal strength as a man, as a helper of men,
as a representative of Jesus, without enduring loss and suffering. No
man who ever rises to a place of real worth and usefulness in the world
walks on a rose-strewn path. We never can be made fit for anything
beautiful and worthy without cost of pain and tears. Always it is true
that--

"Things that hurt and things that mar
Shape the man for perfect praise;
Shock and strain and ruin are
Friendlier than the smiling days."

How about ourselves? Life is made very real to our thought when we
remember that in all the experiences of joy and sorrow, pleasure and
pain, success and failure, health and sickness, quiet or struggle, God
is making men of us. Then he watches us to see if we fail. Here is a
man who is passing through sore trial. For many months his wife has
been a great sufferer. All the while he has been carrying a heavy
burden,--a financial burden, a burden of sympathy; for every moment's
pain that his wife has suffered has been like a sword in his own
he