d foes hold the very
throat of the pass. But, however long, however barren, however rugged,
however black, however trackless, we may see if we will, a bright form
descending the rocky way with radiant eyes and calm lips, God's
messenger, Hope; and the rough rocks are like the doorway through which
she comes near to us in our weary struggle. For us all, dear friends, it
is true. In all our difficulties and sorrows, be they great or small; in
our business perplexities; in the losses that rob our homes of their
light; in the petty annoyances that diffuse their irritation through so
much of our days; it is within our power to turn them all into occasions
for a firmer grasp of God, and so to make them openings by which a
happier hope may flow into our souls.

But the promise, like all God's promises, has its well-defined
conditions. Achan has to be killed and put safe out of the way first, or
no shining Hope will stand out against the black walls of the defile.
The tastes which knit us to the perishable world, the yearnings for
Babylonish garments and wedges of gold, must be coerced and subdued.
Swift, sharp, unrelenting justice must be done on the lust of the flesh,
and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, if our trials are ever
to become _doors of hope._ There is no natural tendency in the mere fact
of sorrow and pain to make God's love more discernible, or to make our
hope any firmer. All depends on how we use the trial, or as I say--first
stone Achan, and then hope!

So, the trouble which detaches us from earth gives us new hope.
Sometimes the effect of our sorrows and annoyances and difficulties is
to rivet us more firmly to earth. The eye has a curious power, which
they call persistence of vision, of retaining the impression made upon
it, and therefore of seeming to see the object for a definite time after
it has really been withdrawn. If you whirl a bit of blazing stick round,
you will see a circle of fire though there is only a point moving
rapidly in the circle. The eye has its memory like the soul. And the
soul has its power of persistence like the eye, and that power is
sometimes kindled into activity by the fact of loss. We often see our
departed joys, and gaze upon them all the more eagerly for their
departure. The loss of dear ones should stamp their image on our hearts,
and set it as in a golden glory. But it sometimes does more than that;
it sometimes makes us put the present with its duties impatient