se again out of trial than we have in the life of St. Paul. From the
day of his conversion till the day of his death, trouble followed him.
He was misunderstood; he was cast out for Christ's sake; he met
persecution in every form; he was shipwrecked; he lay in dungeons; he
was deserted by his friends. But he never fainted, never grew
discouraged, never spoke one word about giving up. "Cast down, but not
destroyed," was the story of his life. He quickly arose out of every
trial, every adversity, with a new light in his eye, a new enthusiasm
in his heart. He could not be defeated, for he had Christ in him.
Shall we not catch St. Paul's unconquerable spirit, that we may never
faint in any trial?

It requires faith to meet trouble and adversity heroically.
Undoubtedly, at the time, the blessing is not apparent in the sorrow or
the defeat. All seems disastrous and destructive. It is in the
future, in the outworking, that the good is to come. It is a matter of
faith, not of sight. "All chastening seemeth for the present to be not
joyous, but grievous; yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto
them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of
righteousness." Oh, the blessing of God's "afterwards"! Jacob one day
thought and said that all things were against him, but afterward he saw
that his great afflictions and losses were wrought in as parts of a
beautiful plan of love for him. The disciples thought that the cross
was the destruction of all their Messianic hopes; afterward they saw
that it was the very fulfilment of these hopes. The pruning, which at
the time cuts so into the life of the vine, lopping off great, rich
branches, afterward is seen to have been the saving and enriching of
the whole vine. So we always need faith. We must believe against
appearances.

"Under the fount of ill
Many a cup doth fill,
And the patient lip, though it drinketh oft,
Finds only the bitter still.

"Nevertheless, I know,
Out of the dark must grow,
Sooner or later, whatever is fair,
Since the heavens have willed it so."

Back and forth the plough was driven. The field was covered with
grasses and lovely flowers, but remorselessly through them all the
share tore its way, cutting furrow after furrow. It seemed that all
the beauty was being hopelessly destroyed. But by and by harvest-time
came, and the field waved with golden wheat. That was what the
ploughman's faith saw from the beginning