must enter the Kingdom.'

And the way by which all these troubles and cares, whether they be
those incident and peculiar to Christian life, or those common to
humanity, can best be met and overcome, is precisely by this thought,
'The Master has told us before.' Sorrows anticipated are more easily
met. It is when the vessel is caught with all its sails set that it
is almost sure to go down, and, at all events, sure to be badly
damaged in the typhoon. But when the barometer has been watched, and
its fall has given warning, and everything movable has been made
fast, and every spare yard has been sent below, and all tightened up
and ship-shape--then she can ride out the storm. Forewarned is
forearmed. Savages think, when an eclipse comes, that a wolf has
swallowed the sun, and it will never come out again. We know that it
has all been calculated beforehand, and since we know that it is
coming to-morrow, when it does come, it is only a passing darkness.
Sorrow anticipated is sorrow half overcome; and when it falls on us,
the bewilderment, as if 'some strange thing had happened,' will be
escaped when we can remember that the Master has told us it all
beforehand.

And again, sorrow foretold gives us confidence in our Guide. We have
the chart, and as we look upon it we see marked 'waterless country,'
'pathless rocks,' 'desert and sand,' 'wells and palm-trees.' Well,
when we come to the first of these, and find ourselves, as the map
says, in the waterless country; and when, as we go on step by step,
and mile after mile, we find it is all down there, we say to
ourselves, 'The remainder will be accurate, too,' and if we are in
'Marah' to-day, where 'the water is bitter,' and nothing but the wood
of the tree that grows there can ever sweeten it, we shall be at