Even so has it been, times without number, with some starving and
thirsty soul, that has gone on feebly trying to live a maimed life,
shut up in itself, ailing, feeble. There has descended upon it what
looks at first sight like a calamity, some affliction unaccountable
and irreparable; and then it proves that this was the one thing
needed; that sorrow has brought out some latent unselfishness, or
suffering energised some unused faculty of strength and patience.
But even if it is not so, if we cannot trace in our own lives or
the lives of others the beneficent influence of suffering, we can
always take refuge in one thought. We can see that the one mighty
and transforming power on earth is the power of love; we see people
make sacrifices, not momentary sacrifices, but lifelong patient
renunciations, for the sake of one whom they love; we see a great
and passionate affection touch into being a whole range of
unsuspected powers; we see men and women utterly unconscious of
pain and weariness, utterly unaware that they are acting without a
thought of self, if they can but soothe the pain of one dear to
them, or win a smile from beloved lips; it is not that the
selfishness, the indolence, is not there, but it is all borne away
upon a mighty stream, as the river-wrack spins upon the rising
flood.
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