Life is a mess. And theology must be lived out in the midst of that mess.

The men, who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.

There is prodigious strength in sorrow and despair.

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be.

There have been occasions in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I have felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interest and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance any more. Never has that curtain dropped so heavy and blank, as when my way in life lay stretched out straight before me through the newly-entered road of apprenticeship to Joe.

It's a bad job," he said, when I had done; "but the sun sets every day, and people die every minute, and we mustn't be scared by the common lot. If we failed to hold our own, because that equal foot at all men's doors was heard knocking somewhere, every object in this world would slip from us. No! Ride on! Rough-shod if need be, smooth-shod if that will do, but ride on! Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!

Every failure teaches a man something, if he will learn; and you are too sensible a man not to learn from this failure.

It was a harder day's journey than yesterday's, for there were long and weary hills to climb; and in journeys, as in life, it is a great deal easier to go down hill than up. However, they kept on, with unabated perseverance, and the hill has not yet lifted its face to heaven that perseverance will not gain the summit of at last.

I have broken where I should have bent; and have mused and brooded, when my spirit should have mixed with all God's great creation. The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother. I have turned from the world, and I pay the penalty.

And from the death of each day's hope, another hope sprang up to live tomorrow.

Ah, that 'if.' But it's of no use to despond. I can but do that, when I have tried everything and failed, and even then it won't serve me much.