Failure is often the rock-bottom foundation of real success. If man, in
a few instances of his life can say, "Those failures were the best
things in the world that could have happened to me," should he not face
new failures with undaunted courage and trust that the miraculous
ministry of Nature may transform these new stumbling-blocks into new
stepping-stones?

Our highest hopes, are often destroyed to prepare us for better things.
The failure of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly; the
passing of the bud is the becoming of the rose; the death or
destruction of the seed is the prelude to its resurrection as wheat. It
is at night, in the darkest hours, those preceding dawn, that plants
grow best, that they most increase in size. May this not be one of
Nature's gentle showings to man of the times when he grows best, of the
darkness of failure that is evolving into the sunlight of success. Let
us fear only the failure of not living the right as we see it, leaving
the results to the guardianship of the Infinite.

If we think of any supreme moment of our lives, any great success, any
one who is dear to us, and then consider how we reached that moment,
that success, that friend, we will be surprised and strengthened by the
revelation. As we trace each one, back, step by step, through the
genealogy of circumstances, we will see how logical has been the course
of our joy and success, from sorrow and failure, and that what gives us
most happiness to-day is inextricably connected with what once caused
us sorrow. Many of the rivers of our greatest prosperity and growth
have had their source and their trickling increase into volume among
the dark, gloomy recesses of our failure.

There is no honest and true work, carried along with constant and