'The fruit of pain
The fruit of pain, of weakness, of trial
Many of God's noblest servants have carried "thorns" in their flesh all their days — but meanwhile they have had spiritual blessings and enrichment which they never would have had if their cries for relief had been granted.
We do not know what we owe to the suffering of those who have gone before us. Prosperity has not enriched the world as adversity has done.
The best thoughts, the richest life-lessons, the sweetest songs that have come down to us from the past, have not come from lives that have known no privation, no adversity — but are the fruit of pain, of weakness, of trial .
Men have cried out for emancipation from the bondage of hardship, of sickness, of infirmity, of self-denying necessity — not knowing that the thing which seemed to be hindering them in their career — was the very making of whatever was noble, beautiful, and blessed in their life.