against opposition. We acquire power as we draw it out of deep experience and effort. And the new Christian ideal made no place for indulgence and ease because these things leave men and women weak, with no strength either themselves to bear or to achieve for others. It is as Mrs. King puts it in Ugo Bassi's "Sermon in the Hospital":
"The Vine from every living limb bleeds wine;
Is it the poorer for the spirit shed?
The drunkard and the wanton drink thereof;
Are they the richer for that gift's excess?
Measure thy life by loss instead of gain;
Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth
For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice;
And whoso suffers most hath most to give.
God said to Man and Woman, 'By thy sweat,
And by thy travail, thou shalt conquer earth,'
Not, by thy ease or pleasure:—and no good
Or glory of this life but comes by pain.
How poor were earth if all its martrydoms,
If all its struggling sighs of sacrifice
Were swept away, and all were satiate-smooth,
If this were such a heaven of soul and sense
As some have dreamed of;—and we human still.
Nay, we were fashioned not for perfect peace
In this world, howsoever in the next:
And what we win and hold is through some strife."
And it was because our Lord knew this that He set over against men's wills the strait door of the kingdom of life. He did not betray the trust that had been given to Him. He did not say,
