" (13)
Suffering may be the appointed means by which the highest nature
of man is to be disciplined and developed. Assuming happiness to
be the end of being, sorrow may be the indispensable condition
through which it is to be reached. Hence St. Paul's noble paradox
descriptive of the Christian life,--"as chastened, and not
killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making
many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things."
Even pain is not all painful. On one side it is related to
suffering, and on the other to happiness. For pain is remedial as
well as sorrowful. Suffering is a misfortune as viewed from the
one side, and a discipline as viewed from the other. But for
suffering, the best part of many men's nature would sleep a deep
sleep. Indeed, it might almost be said that pain and sorrow were
the indispensable conditions of some men's success, and the
necessary means to evoke the highest development of their genius.
Shelley has said of poets:
"Most wretched men are cradled into poetry by wrong,
They learn in suffering what they teach in song."
Does any one suppose that Burns would have sung as he did,
had he been rich, respectable, and "kept a gig;" or Byron,
if he had been a prosperous, happily-married Lord Privy Seal
or Postmaster-General?
Sometimes a heartbreak rouses an impassive nature to life.
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