SUCCESS.
While the man before had climbed, on sharp, flinty precipices, slippery, abysmal; in darkness, seen by no kindred eye,—amid the brood of dragons; and his heart many times was like to fail within him, in his loneliness, in his extreme need; yet he climbed and climbed, gluing his footsteps in his blood; and now behold, Hyperion-like, he has scaled the height, and on the summit shakes his glittering shafts of war! What a scene and new kingdom for him; all bathed in auroral radiance of Hope; far-stretching, solemn, joyful; what wild Memnon's music, from the depths of nature comes toning through the soul raised suddenly out of strangling death into victory and life!
Success is full of promise till men get it; and then it is last year's nest from which the bird has flown.
SUFFERING.
There is seldom a line of glory written upon the earth's face, but a line of suffering runs parallel with it; and they that read the lustrous syllables of the one, and stoop not to decipher the spotted and worn inscription of the other, get the least half of the lesson earth has to give.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire; and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gate of heaven.
No flower can bloom in paradise which is not transplanted from Gethsemane.
