is generally by _humiliation_? There is probably no other school for it.
When a man enters himself as a pupil in such a school it means a very
great thing. There is much Rest there, but there is also much Work.

I should be wrong, even though my theme is the brighter side, to ignore
the cross and minimise the cost. Only it gives to the cross a more
definite meaning, and a rarer value, to connect it thus directly and
_causally_ with the growth of the inner life. Our platitudes on the
"benefits of affliction" are usually about as vague as our theories of
Christian Experience. "Somehow," we believe affliction does us good. But
it is not a question of "Somehow." The result is definite, calculable,
necessary. It is under the strictest law of cause and effect. The first
effect of losing one's fortune, for instance, is humiliation; and the
effect of humiliation, as we have just seen, is to make one humble; and
the effect of being humble is to produce Rest. It is a roundabout way,
apparently, of producing Rest; but Nature generally works by circular
processes; and it is not certain that there is any other way of becoming
humble, or of finding Rest. If a man could make himself humble to order,
it might simplify matters, but we do not find that this happens. Hence
we must all go through the mill. Hence death, death to the lower self,
is the nearest gate and the quickest road to life.

Yet this is only half the truth. Christ's life outwardly was one of the
most troubled lives that was ever lived: Tempest and tumult, tumult and
tempest, the waves breaking over it all the time till the worn body was
laid in the grave. But the inner life was a sea of glass. The great calm
was always there. At any moment you might have gone to Him and found
Rest. And even when the bloodhounds were dogging him in the streets
of Jerusalem, He turned to His disciples and offered them, as a last
legacy, "My peace." Nothing ever for a moment broke the serenity of