In any case, if it is so, it is better to remember that it is so. And
Lent, and Passion Week, and Good Friday are meant to put us in mind of it
year by year, because we are all of us only too ready to forget it, and
shut our eyes to it. Lent and Passion Week, I say, are meant to put us
in mind. And the preacher is bound to put you in mind of it now and
then. He is bound, not too often perhaps, lest he should discourage
young hearts, but now and then, to put you in mind of the old Greek
proverb, the very words of which St. Paul uses in the text, that ta
pa???ata ?a???ata--sorrows are lessons; and that the most truly pitiable
people often are those who have no sorrows, and ask for no man's pity.
For so it is. The very worst calamity, I should say, which could befall
any human being would be this--To have his own way from his cradle to his
grave; to have everything he liked for the asking, or even for the
buying; never to be forced to say, "I should like that: but I cannot
afford it. I should like this: but I must not do it"--Never to deny
himself, never to exert himself, never to work, and never to want.
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