Of affliction, pain, and toil;

These spring up and choke the weeds

Which would else o'erspread the soil.

Trials make the promise sweet —

Trials give new life to prayer —

Trials bring me to his feet,

Lay me low, and keep me there."


"It is so, indeed, dear Ellen," said Mrs. Montgomery, when she
had finished — and holding the little singer to her breast —
"I have always found it so. God is faithful. I have seen
abundant cause to thank him for all the evils he has made me
suffer heretofore, and I do not doubt it will be the same with
this last and worst one. Let us glorify him in the fires, my
daughter; and if earthly joys be stripped from us, and if we
be torn from each other, let us cling the closer to him — he
can, and he will, in that case, make up to us more than all we
have lost."

Ellen felt her utter inability to join in her mother's
expressions of confidence and hope; to her there was no
brightness on the cloud that hung over them — it was all dark.
She could only press her lips, in tearful silence, to the one