Not ease, not pleasure, not happiness, but a man, Nature is after. In every great painting of the masters there is one idea or figure which stands out boldly beyond everything else. Every other idea or figure on the canvas is subordinate to it, but pointing to the central idea, finds its true expression there. So in the vast universe of God, every object of creation is but a guideboard with an index-finger pointing to the central figure of the created universe—Man. Nature writes this thought upon every leaf, she thunders it in every creation. It is exhaled from every flower; it twinkles in every star.
Oh, what price will Nature not pay for a man! Ages and aeons were nothing for her to spend in preparing for his coming, or to make his existence possible. She has rifled the centuries for his development, and placed the universe at his disposal. The world is but his kindergarten, and every created thing but an object-lesson from the unseen universe. Nature resorts to a thousand expedients to develop a perfect type of her grandest creation. To do this she must induce him to fight his way up to his own loaf. She never allows him once to lose sight of the fact that it is the struggle to attain that develops the man. The moment we put our hand upon that which looks so attractive at a distance, and which we struggled so hard to reach, Nature robs it of its charm by holding up before us another prize still more attractive.
"Life," says a philosopher, "refuses to be so adjusted as to eliminate from it all strife and conflict and pain. There are a thousand tasks that, in larger interests than ours, must be done, whether we want them or no. The world refuses to walk upon tiptoe, so that we may be able to sleep. It gets up very early and stays up very late, and all the while there is the conflict of myriads of hammers and saws and axes with the stubborn material that in no other way can be made to serve its use and do its work for man. And then, too, these hammers and axes are not wielded without strain or pang, but swung by the millions of toilers who labor with their cries and groans and tears. Nay, our temple-building, whether it be for God or man, exacts its bitter toll, and fills life with cries and blows. The thousand rivalries of our daily business, the fiercer animosities when we are beaten, the even fiercer exultation when we have beaten, the crashing blows of disaster, the piercing scream of defeat,—these things we have not yet gotten rid of, nor in this life ever will. Why should we wish to get rid of them? We are here, my brother, to be hewed and hammered and planed in God's quarry and on God's anvil for a nobler life to come." Only the muscle that is used is developed.
The constantly cheerful man, who survives his blighted hopes and disappointments, who takes them just for what they are, lessons, and perhaps blessings in disguise, is the true hero.
There is a strength
Deep bedded in our hearts of which we reck
But little, till the shafts of heaven have pierced
Its fragile dwelling. Must not earth be rent
Before her gems are found?
MRS. HEMANS.
"If what shone afar so grand
Turns to ashes in the hand,
On again, the virtue lies
In the struggle, not the prize."
"The hero is not fed on sweets,
Daily his own heart he eats;
Chambers of the great are jails,
And head-winds right for royal sails."
"So many great
Illustrious spirits have conversed with woe,
Have in her school been taught, as are enough
To consecrate distress, and make ambition
Even wish the frown beyond the smile of fortune."
Then welcome each rebuff,
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting, that bids not sit nor stand but go.
BROWNING.