for young Elijahs at the university there were no ravens; nor wild
honey for St. John; nor Galilean basketfuls left over by hungry
fisherfolk, fishers of men.

So back to his briers. And back to the autumn soil, days of hard
drudging, days of hard thinking. The chief problem for the nigh
future being, how soonest to provide the raiment, fill the scrip;
and so with time enough to find out what, on its first appearance,
is so terrible a discovery to the young, straining against
restraint: that just the lack of a coarse garment or two--of a
little money for a little plain food--of a few candles and a few
coverlets for light and warmth with a book or two thrown in--that
a need so poor, paltry as this, may keep mind and heart back for
years. Ah, happy ye! with whom this last not too long--or for
always!

Yet happy ye, whether the waiting be for short time or long time,
if only it bring on meanwhile, as it brought on with him, the
struggle! One sure reward ye have, then, as he had, though there
may be none other--just the struggle: the marshalling to the front
of rightful forces--will, effort, endurance, devotion; the putting
resolutely back of forces wrongful; the hardening of all that is
soft within, the softening of all that is hard: until out of the
hardening and the softening results the better tempering of the
soul's metal, and higher development of those two qualities which
are best in man and best in his ideal of his Maker--strength and
kindness, power and mercy. With an added reward also, if the
struggle lead you to perceive (what he did not perceive), as the
light of your darkness, the sweet of bitter, that real struggling
is itself real living, and that no ennobling thing of this earth is