Great truths are dearly bought. The common truth,
Such as men give and take from day to day,
Comes in the common walk of easy life,
Blown by the careless wind across our way.
Great truths are greatly won, not found by chance,
Nor wafted on the breath of summer dream;
But grasped in the great struggle of the soul
Hard buffeting with adverse wind and stream.
But in the day of conflict, fear and grief,
When the strong hand of God, put forth in might,
Plows up the subsoil of the stagnant heart
And brings the imprisoned truth-seed to the light,
Wrung from the troubled spirit in hard hours
Of weakness, solitude, perchance of pain,
Truth springs like harvest from the well-plowed field.
And the soul feels it has not wept in vain.
--Horatius Bonar.
Though trouble-tossed and torture-torn
The kingliest kings are crowned with thorn.
--Gerald Massey.