| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 2 |
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It is easy to find illustrations of this truth. The world’s greatest blessings have come out of its greatest sorrows. Said Goethe, “I never had an affliction which did not turn into a poem.” No doubt the best music and poetry in all literature had a like origin, if we could know its whole story. It is universally true that poets “learn in suffering what they teach in song.” Nothing really worth while in life’s lessons comes easily without pain and cost.
Readers who find in certain books of Christian experience words which are bread to their spiritual hunger, which cheer and strengthen them, which shine like lamps on their darkness, showing them the way, do not know what it cost the writer to prepare these words, how he suffered, struggled and endured, in order that he might learn to write the sentences which are so full of helpfulness. This is one of the rewards of suffering – the power to light the way for other sufferers.
Many of the beneficences which have brought greatest good to the world have been the fruit of a bitter sorrow or a loss which seemed overwhelming. When Dr. Moon of Brighton was at the very ripeness of his powers and the summit of his achievements, he became totally blind. It seemed a terrible calamity that a man so brilliant, fitted to be so helpful to humanity, should have his career of usefulness thus ruthlessly ended. For a time his heart was full of rebellious thoughts; he could not and would not submit. He could see no possible goodness, nothing but unqualified misfortune, in the darkening of his eyes which had put an end to his career among men. But in his darkness, he began to think of others who were blind and to ponder the question whether there might not be some way by which they could be enabled to read. The outcome of his thought was the invention of the alphabet for the blind, which is now used in nearly every country and in every language, by means of which three or four millions of blind in all parts of the world can read the Bible and other books. Was it not worth while for one man’s eyes to be darkened in order that such a boon might be given to the blind of all lands?
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