| Sweet are the uses of adversity, |
| Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, |
| Wears yet a precious jewel in its head. |
Trials instruct mortals not to lean on an earthly staff, — a broken reed, that pierces the heart. We do not half remember this in the sunshine of joy and prosperity. Sorrow is salutary. It brings the cross, but it brings also the crown. Through great tribulation we enter into the kingdom. Trials are proofs of God's care. Spiritual development germinates not from seed sown in the soil of earthly hopes; but when these decay, Soul propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, that have no taint of earth. Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and power.
Amidst gratitude for conjugal felicity, it is well to remember how fleeting are human joys. Amidst conjugal infelicity, it is well to hope, and wait patiently on the Lord.
O husbands and wives, never separate, if there is no Christian demand for it. It is better to await the logic of events, than for a wife precipitately to leave her husband, or a husband his wife. If one is better than the other (as must always be the case) the other pre-eminently needs good company. Socrates considered patience salutary under such circumstances, making his Xantippe a discipline for his philosophy.
Sorrow has its reward. It never leaves us where it found us. The furnace separates the gold from the dross, that the precious metal may be graven with the image of God. The cup our Father hath given, shall we not drink it, and learn the lesson He teaches?
If the ocean is stirred by a storm, the clouds lower,
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