The message each bore was sweet.
For even the saddest, and weighted most
With trial and pain for me,
Yet breathed in my ear, ere it passed from sight,
"This cross I have brought to thee
Comes straight from the Friend Who, of all thy friends,
Doth love thee most tenderly;
"He would rather have sent thee a joyous hour,
And fraught with some happy thing,
But He saw that naught else could so meet thy need