Contending with the globe, we are like Jacob wrestling with
the angel. The fight is long and hard amid the mystery and the
darkness, and the great Power seems reluctant to bless us; but
the breaking of the day comes, and we find ourselves blest with
corn, wine, oil, purple, feasts, flowers. Ah! and with gifts
far beyond those of basket and store--ripened intelligence,
self-reliance, courage, skill, manliness, virtue. Of course,
man suffers in the conflict, as the patriarch did. When we see
the farm laborer bent double with rheumatism, or the collier
mutilated by the explosion in the mine, or the grinder with
his lung gone, or the weaver with his enfeebled physique, or
the seaman prematurely old through his battle with wind and
wave, or any of the million workers who carry pathetic signs
of the arduousness of toil, we see the limp of the victorious
wrestler. In the South Seas the natives lie on their backs and
the bread-fruit drops into their mouths. But these make a poor
show in the grand procession of the ages.
The law of life is truly severe which enjoins that man shall eat
bread in the sweat of his face, but in this struggle for life our
great antagonist is our great helper; we are leaving barbarism behind
us; we are undergoing a magnificent transformation; we are becoming
princes of God and heirs of all things.--W. L. WATKINSON, “The
Transfigured Sackcloth.”
(3079)
See ADVERSITY.