Family Sorrow

May not a man say, with some reason, "Let us build here three tabernacles, and abide in this paradise of God"? But in the providence of God one child dies, and another child is prostrated with sickness, and alienations come in to disturb the peace of the family circle, and the household is divided and scattered, and the paradise is invaded, and thorns and thistles come up where were blossoms and fruit. Under such circumstances a man is tempted to charge God falsely. And where there has been such temptation, and waste, and sickness, and desolation, and the heart has been burdened with sorrow, and the head has been bowed down with grief, and suffering has written its lines on the face at last, though for the present these things are not joyous, they begin to bring hunger for that which the earth cannot supply, and to cause the soul to cry out, "O God, feed me, and give me the hidden manna out of the cloud and darkness," and in answer come Divinely-supplied patience and inward joy. How many persons have at last borne witness, " I have learned what I could not have learned if I had been spared from sorrow"—Beccher