man lives to himself, and so is sunk in darkness.

And what shall I say about the third of the doleful triad of which
this pregnant emblem is the recognised symbol all the world over?
Surely, though earth be full of blessing, and life of possibilities
of joy, no man travels very far along the road without feeling that
the burden of sorrow is a burden that we all have to carry. There
are blessings in plenty, there is mirth more than enough. There is
'the laughter' which is 'the crackling of thorns' under a pot. There
are plenty of distractions and amusements, 'blessings more plentiful
than hope'; but yet the ground tone of every human life, when the
first flush of inexperience and novelty has worn off, apart from
God, is sadness, conscious of itself sometimes, and driven to all
manner of foolish attempts at forgetfulness, unconscious of itself
sometimes, and knowing not what is the disease of which it
languishes. There it is, like some persistent minor in a great piece
of music, wailing on through all the embroidery and lightsomeness of
the cheerfuller and loftier notes. 'Every heart knoweth its own
bitterness,' and every heart _has_ a bitterness of its own to
know.

I do not understand how it is that men who have no religion in them
can bear their own sorrows and see their neighbours' and not go mad.
Sometimes the world seems to me to be moving round its central sun
with a doleful atmosphere of sighs wherever it goes, and all the
mirth and stir and bustle are but like a thin crust of grass with
flowers upon it, cast across the sulphurous depths of some volcano
that may slumber for a while, but is there all the same.

Brother! you and I, away from Jesus Christ, have to face the