upon the shore would wake up into fury, and would dash
its claws into cliff and sand, and rend the works of man into
nothingness. We stood together on these cliffs--wives whose husbands
were wrestling with the storm, mothers who were yearning for the sons
they had borne. We saw the boats fight nearer and nearer through the mad
spray and the tearing blasts. One after another we saw them crushed and
sunken by the hand of the wind. Many of us went to our homes with
bitterness at heart. We could not tell why those innocent men should
have been snatched out of life; we could not tell why the innocent
sufferers who remain should bear their sorrow through all the years
until the release of death comes. Our thoughts were the thoughts that
Job cherished in the black depths of his agony. But let me counsel you;
let me ask you to remember that although death is here and pain is
here--although every moment of our lives brings some new mystery--yet in
the end there shall be peace. Our little sufferings count as nothing in
the sum of the universe. The ills that we cry out against are only but
as the troubles of children, and over all watches the Father who cared
for Job in the desert, and who took to His own breast the souls of those
who went down in the storm that crushed so many hopes of so many men and
women in this our little village. I ask you only to trust. I give you no
arguments. I only beg you to feel. Crush your questionings. Force
yourself to believe in your own insignificance; force yourself to think
that suffering has a wise end, and that even our pains, which are so
great to us, are part of the scheme of a Master who is moulding the
universe to His own plans. When once you have attained this central
attitude of calm and trust, then for the rest of your life you will know
nothing but joy. The thought of death will be no more like to the horror
of a nightmare, but you will meet the great change even as you meet the
deep black sleep of tired men. You will know, while thought remains,
that you have not lived in vain, and you have not died in vain, for
somewhere in God's providence there shall be rest for you, and immortal
peace."

The thin frame of the speaker quivered as he spoke, and his long fingers
writhed with a motion that gave emphasis to his ringing tones. Hob's
Tommy had never heard anything like this before. He sat stupefied, and
felt as though some music not heard of hitherto were playing and giving
him gladness.