every home as the mountains are round about Jerusalem, for bounty and
protection.

But the sage was also thinking of men whose hopes were broken, and
whose lives were baffled and beaten. These exiles, crossing the
desert, might have claimed for themselves the poet's phrase, "Lo,
henceforth I am a prisoner of hope." Like Dante, they might have
cried, "For years my pillow by night has been wet with tears, and all
day long have I held heartbreak at bay." For these whose glorious
youth had been exhausted by bondage, life had run to its very dregs.
Gone the days of glorious strength! Gone all the opportunities that
belong to the era when the heart is young, the limitations of life had
become severe! Environment often is a cage against whose iron bars the
soul beats bloody wings in vain!

How many men are held back by one weak nerve, or organ! How many are
shut in, and limited, and just fall short of supreme success because
of an hereditary weakness, handed on by the fathers! How many made one
mistake in youth in choosing the occupation and discovered the error
when it was too late! How many erred in judgment in their youth,
through one critical blunder, that has been irretrievable, and whose
burden is henceforth lasht to the back! In such an hour of depression,
Isaiah assembles the exiles, and exclaims, "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my
people. Tho your young men faint and be weary, tho the strong utterly
fail, yet God is the unwearied one; with his help thou shalt take thy
burden, and mount up with wings as eagles; with his unwearied strength
thou shalt run with thy load and not be weary, and walk and not
faint." For this is the experience of persecution and the reward
of sorrow, bravely borne that the fainting strength of man is
supplemented by the sure help of the unwearied God.