The Supreme Test

"I will bring the third part through the fire, . . . and will try them as gold is tried."—Zechariah.

Everything that goes to make up the sum-total of human experience must be subjected to the severest tests, and its worth or worthlessness decided by the results. That a great deal which may have been accounted very precious is found to have no real value, is proved daily by the sorrows and disappointments of mortal existence, but if bitter experiences lead to a search after spiritual realities, which never fail to satisfy, they have served a good purpose and cannot be regretted. That which is to be lamented is the sense of cold indifference or of bitter cynicism which comes to many whose affections and hopes have been chilled by adverse fate, and who are therefore in the condition described by Tennyson in his "In Memoriam,"—

when faith had fall'n asleep,
I heard a voice "believe no more,"
And heard an ever-breaking shore
That tumbled in the godless deep.

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A Tribute
August 27, 1904
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