onditions of our life, however hard,
as divinely ordained, and as the very conditions in which, for a time,
we will grow the best, we are ready to get from them the blessing and
good intended in them for us.

Another important suggestion is that we faint not under trial. There
are those who give up and lose all their courage and faith when trouble
comes. They cannot endure suffering. Sorrow crushes them. They break
down at once under a cross and think they never can go on again. There
have been many lives crushed by affliction or adversity, which have not
risen again out of the dust. There have been mothers, happy and
faithful before, out of whose home one child has been taken, and who
have lost all interest in life from that day, letting their home grow
dreary and desolate and their other children go uncared for, as they
sat with folded hands in the abandonment of their despairing,
uncomforted grief. There have been men with bright hopes, who have
suffered one defeat or met with one loss, and then have let go in their
discouragement and have fallen into the dust of failure, never trying
to rise again.

Nothing is sadder in life than such yieldings. They are unworthy of
immortal beings. The divine intention in trial never is to crush us,
but always to do good to us in some way, to bring out in us new energy
of life. Whatever the loss, struggle, or sorrow, we should accept it
in love, humility, and faith, take its lessons, and then go on into the
life that is before us. When one child is taken out of a home, the
mother should, with more reverent heart and more gentle hand, turn the
whole energy of her chastened life into love's channels, living more
than ever before for her home and the children that are left to her.
The man who has felt the stunning blow of a sudden grief or loss should
kiss the hand of God that has smitten, and quickly arise and press
onward to the battles and duties before him. We should never accept
any defeat as final. Though it be in life's last hours, with only a
mere fringe of margin left, and all our past failure and loss, still we
should not despair.

"What though the radiance which was once so bright,
Be now forever taken from my sight;
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind."

There is nowhere any better illustration of the way we should always
ri