And now I ask, is it not an intended lesson? Evidently it comes in as an element in the Providential plan in which we are involved. For we see its disciplinary nature,—its wise and beneficial results in harmony with that Plan. Consider whether it is not the fact, that the entire discipline of life grows out of a succession of disappointments. That youthful dream, in which life has stretched out like a sunny landscape with purple mountain-chains—is it not well that it is broken up, and we strike upon rugged realities? Does not all the strength of manhood, and the power of achievement, and the glory of existence, depend upon these things which are not included in the young boy's vision of a happy world. Welcome, O! disappointment of our hope that life would prove a perpetual holiday. Welcome experience of the fact that blessing comes not from pleasure, but from labor! For in that experience alone was there ever anything truly great or good accomplished. We can conceive no possible way by which one can be made personally strong without his own effort;—no possible way by which the mind can be enriched and strengthened where it is lifted up, instead of climbing for itself;—no way, therefore, in which life could be at all a worthy achievement, if it were merely a plain of ease, instead of holding every ward of knowledge and of power under the guard of difficulty and the requisition of endeavor.
And it is equally true that the greatest successes grow out of great failures. In numerous instances the result is better that comes after a series of abortive experiences than it would have been if it had come at once. For all these successive failures induce a skill, which is so much additional power working into the final achievement. Nobody passes at once to the mastery, in any branch of science or of industry; and when he does become a master in his work it is evident, not only in the positive excellence of his performance, but in the sureness with which he avoids defects; and these defects he has learned by experimental failures. The hand that evokes such perfect music from the instrument has often failed in its touch, and bungled among the keys. And if a man derives skill from his own failures, so does he from the failures of other men. Every unsuccessful attempt is, for him, so much work done; for he will not go over that ground again, but seek some new way. Every disappointed effort fences in and indicates the only possible path of success, and makes it easier to find. We should thank past ages and other men, not only for what they have left us of great things done, but for the heritage of their failures. Every baffled effort for freedom contributes skill for the next attempt, and ensures the day of victory. Nations stripped and bound, and waiting for liberty under the shadow of thrones, cherish in memory not only the achievements of their heroes, but the defeats of their martyrs; and when the trumpet-voice shall summon them once more, as surely it will,—when they shall draw for the venture of freedom, and unroll its glittering standard to the winds,—they will avoid the stumbling blocks which have sacrificed the brave, and the errors which have postponed former hopes. In public and in private action, it is true that disappointment is the school of achievement, and the balked efforts are the very agents that help us to our purpose.
And, if life itself—life as a whole—seems to us but a series of disappointments, is not this the very conviction we need to work out from it, through our own experience? Do we not need to learn that this life itself is not sufficient, and holds no blessing that will fill us completely, and with which we may forever rest? The baffled hopes of our mortal state;—what are they but vain strivings of the human soul, out of the path of its highest good? The wandering bird, driven against the branches, and beaten by the storm, flutters at last to the clear opening, by which it mounts above the cloud, and finds its way to its home. This life is not ordained in vain;—it is constituted for a grand purpose, if through its lessons of experience we become convinced that this life is not all. In the outset of our existence here, and merely from the teaching of others, we cannot comprehend the great realities of existence.
How the things that have grown familiar to our eyes, and the lessons that have sounded trite upon our ears, become fresh and wonderful, as life turns into experience! How this very lesson of disappointment lets us in to the deep meanings of Scripture, for instance! The Christ of our youth,—a personage standing mild and beautiful upon the Gospel-page,——a being to admire and love; how be develops to our later thought! how solemnly tender, how greatly real, he becomes to us, when we cling to him in the agony of our sorrow, and he goes down to walk with us on the waters of the sea of death! As traditional sentiment,—as a wholesome subject for school-composition,—we have spoken and written of the weariness of the world-worn heart, and the frailty of earthly things. But, O! when our hearts have actually become worn, and tried; when we begin to learn that the things of this life are evanescent,—are dropping away from us, and we slipping from them,—what inspiration of reality comes to us in the oft-heard invitation, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest!" What a depth of meaning flowing from the eternal world, in the precept we have read so carelessly,—"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal!" Thus the best results of life come from the defeats and the limitations that are involved with it.
And, in all this, observe how disappointment is the instrument of higher
blessings. See how thus life itself suggests a higher good than life
itself can yield. And so the attitude of the disciples, after the
crucifixion, illustrates many experiences of our earthly lot. Those
incidents which perplexed and grieved them were securing the very
results they seemed to prevent. So, in our ordinary life, the things
that appear most adverse to us are often the most favorable.
I may say, indeed, that to any man who is rightly exercised
by it, disappointment always brings a better result. But this statement
requires that I should say, likewise, that the result of disappointment
depends upon the level and quality of a man's spirit. "One thing happens
alike to the wise man and the fool." But how different in texture and
substance is the final result of the event! Disappointment breaks down
a feeble and shallow man. There are those, again, whom it does not make
better,—in fact, whom nothing, as we can see, makes better. Everything
glides easily off from them. Now, it is a noble thing to see a man rise
above misfortune,—a moral Prometheus, submissive to the actual will of
God, but defying fate. But there are men whose very elasticity indicates
the superficiality of their nature. For it is good sometimes to be
sad,—good to have depth of being sufficient for misfortune to sink
into, and, accomplish its proper work. But the man who rightly receives
the lesson of disappointment, and improves by its discipline, bent as
he is on some great or good work, is impelled by it only to a change
of method,—never to a change of purpose; and the disappointment
effectually serves the purpose. But the fact before us is most clearly
seen when we contemplate the results of disappointment upon a religious
and un-religious spirit. A man is not made better by disappointment to
whom this world is virtually everything;—to whom spiritual things are
not realities. To him life is a narrow stream between jutting crags, and
its substance flows away with the objects before his eyes. Nay, some men
of this sort are made worse by the failure of earthly hopes, and their
natures are compressed and hammered by misfortune into a sullen and
granitic defiance. But he who sees beyond these material limits, looking
to the great end and final relations of our being, always extracts from
mortal disappointment a better result. In the wreck of external things
he gathers that spiritual good which is the substance of all life;—that
faith, and patience, and holy love, which, when all that is mortal
and incidental in our humanity passes away, constitute the residuum of
personality.
Our hopes disappointed,—our plans thwarted and overthrown; but out of that disappointment a richer good evolving than we had conceived; something that tends more than all our effort to produce the real object of life. My friends, what do we make out of this fact? Why, surely this, that life is not our plan, but God's. Consider what we, often, would have made out of life, and compare this with what Providence has made out of it. Contrast the man's achievement with the boy's scheme; the dream of care with the moral glory that has sprung from toil and trouble. Contrast the idea of the Saviour in the minds of those disciples with the actual Saviour rising victorious from the conditions of shame and death.
Life is God's plan; not ours. We may find this out only by effort; but we do find it out.
We are responsible for the use of our materials, but the materials themselves, and the great movement of things, are furnished for us. Let us fall into no ascetic view of life. Out of our joy and our acknowledged good the Supreme Disposer works his spiritual ends. But, especially, how often does he do this out of our trials, and sorrows, and so-called evils! Once more I say life is God's plan; not ours. For often on the ruins of visionary hope rises the kingdom of our substantial possession and our true peace; and under the shadow of earthly disappointment, all unconsciously to ourselves, our Divine Redeemer is walking by our side.