Making the Most of Life

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HUNT

, and many of its questions will have to remain unanswered until the horizon of life is widened, and its dim light becomes full and clear in heaven. Meanwhile, however, some of these questions may be at least pa

he same questions. What has been answer to one, will therefore be answer to thousands more. Recently, in one day, two letters came to me from sorrowing ones, with questions. Whether any com

ths. The story is too painful to be repeated in these pages. In his sore distress, the father, a godly man, a man of strong faith a

ur hearts any less sensitive to anguish. "Consolation implies rather an augmentation of the power of bearing than a diminution of the burden." In this case, it cannot lift off the loving father's heart the burden of disappointment and anguish which he experiences in seeing his son swept away in the currents of temptation. No possible comfort can do this. The perfect peace in which God promises to keep t

in some way, at some time, be brought back to God? The daily burden may then daily be laid in the divine hands. The heart's anguish may express itself not in despairing cries, but in believing prayers, inspired by the promise

at it may be in any particular instance we cannot tell; nor is it wise for us to ask. The wisest, truest thing we can do is reverently to open our hearts to the ministry of the sorrow, asking God t

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future-a young man of rare abilities and many noble qualities. The other was a daughter, who had reached womanhood, and was a happy and beloved wife, surrounded by friends and the refinements of a beautiful home, and all that makes life sweet and desirable.

ation and explanation upon the painful things, that we may be ready to accept them with confidence, even with rejoicing. . . . A strong, abiding confidence that all the trials, sorrows, and losses of our lives are parts of our Father's husbandry, ought to silence e

back to God what he had lent me without a murmur. By his help, I believe even the slightest murmur has been repressed concerning the painful things, and that in some measure I have been ready to accept them with confidence, even with rejoicing. But my faith has not come in, as you suggest, to put 'such interpretation and explanation' upon them, as perhaps I ought to do. Why has God th

uld not anxiously inquire concerning the specific lessons, but rather let God show in due time what he designed. No doubt every sorrow has a mission. It comes t

concerns them as well as us. They are called away because their work on earth is done, and higher service in other spheres awaits them. To them death is gain, promotion, translation. The event itself, in its primary significance, is a joyous and blessed one. The sorrow which we experience in their removal is but an incident. God cannot take them home to glory from our side, without giving us pain. But we must not reverse t

in the thought of their immortality, their release from suffering and temptation, and their full blessedness with Christ. It is selfish for us to f

themselves. Then also the separation is painful, but it is borne in the sweet silence of self-denying love. We give up our friends when they are called from our side to accept other and higher places. Life is full of such s

that he "learned obedience by the things which he suffered." This is life's great, all-inclusive

s this blessed outcome of grief and pain. Christ suffered in all points that he might be fitted for his work of helping and saving men. God teaches us in our sorrow

of any blessing he may send, but on the other hand, may receive with quiet, sweet welcome whatever teaching, correction, revealing, purifying, or quickening he would give us. Surely this is better far than that we should anxiou

tery shall be explained, and where we shall see love's lesson plain and clear in all life's strange writing. There is no doubt that sorrow always brings us an opportunity for blessing. Then we must remember that in this world alone can we get the good that can come to us only through pain, for in the life beyond death there is to

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