nds,
but of their highest and best good. Too often human friendship in its
most generous and lavish kindness is really most unkind. It thinks
that its first duty is to give relief from pain, to lighten burdens, to
alleviate hardship, to smoothe the rough path. Too often serious hurt
is done by this over-tenderness of human love.

But Jesus made no such mistakes in dealing with his friends. He did
not try to make life easy for them. He did not pamper them. He never
lowered the conditions of discipleship so that it would be easy for
them to follow him. He did not carry their burdens for them, but put
into their hearts courage and hope to inspire and strengthen them to
carry their own loads.

He did not keep them secluded from the world in a quiet shelter so that
they would not come in contact with the world's evil nor meet its
assaults; his method with them was to teach them how to live so that
they should have the divine protection in the midst of spiritual
danger, and then to send them forth to face the perils and fight the
battles. His prayer for his disciples was not that they should be
taken out of the world, thus escaping its dangers and getting away from
its struggles, but that they should be kept from the world's evil. He
knew that if they would become good soldiers they must be trained in
the midst of the conflict. Hence he did not fight their battles for
them. He did not save Peter from being sifted; it was necessary that
his apostle should pass through the terrible experience, even though he
should fail in it and fall. His prayer for him was not that he should
not be sifted, but that his faith should not altogether fail. His aim
in all his dealings with his friends was to train them into heroic
courage and invincible character, and not to lead them along flowery
paths through gardens of ease.

We are in the habit of saying that the follower of Christ will always
find goodness and mercy wherever he is led. This is true; but it must
not be understood to mean that there will never be any hardness to
endure, any cross to bear, any pain or loss to experience. We grow
best under burdens. We learn most when lessons are hard. When we get
through this earthly life, and stand on the other side, and can look
back on the path over which we have been led, it will appear that we
have found our best blessings where we thought the way was most dreary
and desolate. We shall see then that what seemed sternne