distinguish how much of them is the will of God, and how much our own
weak will; daunted by the first shadow of misfortune, especially
misfortunes in our worldly affairs, wherein so much often happens for
which we have ourselves only to blame. Submission to man is one thing,
submission to God another. The latter is divine, the former is often
merely contemptible. But even to the Almighty Father we should yield
not a blind, crushed resignation, but an open-eyed obedience, like that
we would fain win from our own children, desiring to make of them
children, not slaves.

"My children--for I speak to the very youngest of you here, and do
try to understand me if you can, or as much as you can--it is right
--it is God's will--that you should resist, to the very last, any
trial which is not inevitable. There are in this world countless
sorrows, which, so far appears, we actually bring on ourselves and
others by our own folly, wickedness, or weakness--which is often as
fatal as wickedness; and then we blame providence for it, and sink into
total despair. But when, as sometimes happens, His heavy hand is laid
upon us in a visible, inevitable misfortune which we can not struggle
against, and from which no human aid can save us, then we ought to learn
His hardest lesson--to submit. To submit--yet still, while saying
'Thy will be done,' to strive, so far as we can, to do it. If He have
taken from us all but one talent, even that, my children, let us not
bury in a napkin. Let us rather put it out a usury, leaving to Him to
determine how much we shall receive again; for it is according to our
use of what we have, and not of what we have not, that He will call us
'good and faithful servants,' and at last, when the long struggle of
living shall be over, will bid us 'enter into the joy of our Lord.'"

When the minister sat down, he saw, as he had seen consciously or