It was exactly three hundred years ago today.

On the frigid night of December 18th, 1722, the teenager dipped his quill in the ink jar and began to write. He probably cupped his hands toward the warm lantern for a moment first, just to make his fingers more agile in the chilly air. Then he began to compose. Jonathan Edwards was just 74 days past his nineteenth birthday when he wrote the first batch of his famous resolutions.1

His brain was swirling with holy ambition. Edwards had completed his graduate coursework at Yale in May and had desired to enter into the public ministry, just as his father, Timothy Edwards, and grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, had done before him. Just a few months earlier, in August of 1722, the younger Edwards had arrived in New York City, 150 years before any skyscrapers were built, to preach his first series of sermons. By all accounts, those sermons were excellent.2

Edwards had been called to New York to attempt to pastor a Presbyterian congregation that had recently experienced a church split. In the bustling port city, Edwards had found success in preaching his earliest sermonic orations as well as finding true friendship and spiritual companionship in the home of his host family. His heart was alive, and his spirit was on fire for Christ. He was ready to commit his whole life, as well as his eternal soul, to the service of God.

His quill carefully drew out the first few lines of ink on the page:

1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence.3

That night, in a steady hand and in the same color of ink, Edwards wrote out the first 35 of his resolutions. He would add several more that week and then continue the practice of adding new resolutions for the better part of the winter. As the calendar flipped from 1722 to 1723, Edwards had written nearly forty such resolutions:

7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.

18. Resolved, to live so at all times, as I think is best in my devout frames, and when I have clearest notions of things of the gospel, and another world.

42. Resolved, frequently to renew the dedication of myself to God, which was made at my baptism; which I solemnly renewed, when I was received into the communion of the church; and which I have solemnly re-made this 12th day of January, 1722–23.4

Spiritual Ecstasy and Discouragement

Edwards would later look back on this period as the most beautiful experience of his personal sanctification.5 His faith was growing so quickly that he could practically chart the progress. In fact, that is exactly what he tried to do. Each time he wrote out new resolutions, he marked his progress along the same lines in his diary.6 The two documents — the diary and the “Resolutions” — would have a symbiotic relationship. As he yearned for holiness and found himself wanting, he would make new resolutions, and then monitor his actual progress in his personal journal, keeping track of his successes and failures along the way.

Over time, however, Edwards found that his failures were far more in number and of a more serious kind than he had feared.

Jan. 20, sabbath day. At night. The last week I was sunk so low, that I fear it will be a long time, ’ere I shall be recovered. I fell exceedingly low in the weekly account. I find my heart so deceitful, that I am almost discouraged from making any more resolutions. Wherein have I been negligent in the week past; and how could I have done better, to help the dreadful, low estate in which I am sunk?7

As the spring turned to summer, existential questions began to threaten his spiritual tranquility, and he began to experience trepidations and palpitations of heart related to the defense of his master’s thesis — his Quaestio — and the looming necessity of securing a full-time pastoral call. That in addition to coping with the heartache of falling in love with a younger, beautiful girl, Sarah.8

As it turned out, these first forty or so resolutions wouldn’t be enough to buoy his soul as he dealt with these somewhat typical coming-of-age strains on heart and mind. His soul ached, and his temptations raged against him. So he wrote more resolutions.

When the heat of the summer of 1723 was at its peak, and the honeybees began to feast upon the goldenrod and sedum plants, Edwards had written a full complement of seventy resolutions. And then suddenly — as abruptly as he had started — he stopped.

He never wrote another resolution again.

‘Resolutions’ as Inspiration

There is no doubt that the “Resolutions” are inspiring. This is why they have been printed over and over again, published in the genre of classical devotional materials.9 Men and women for generations now have felt they have met Edwards personally in this short, tract-length document, resonating with the emerging pastor’s soul-deep yearning for Christ. How can we not be inspired when we read such resolutions?

52. I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again: resolved, that I will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age.

53. Resolved, to improve every opportunity, when I am in the best and happiest frame of mind, to cast and venture my soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust and confide in him, and consecrate myself wholly to him; that from this I may have assurance of my safety, knowing that I confide in my Redeemer.10

But what so many readers (including the present writer) find so profound and awe-inspiring from the pen of the forthcoming prodigy, Edwards felt as a burden on his soul. The more he resolved, the more he failed himself and his God. He couldn’t live up to his own standards. He simply could not will himself to breathe the thin air of spiritual Zion all the time, dwelling long on the mountain of God’s holy presence. Since his resolutions pointed out his own sin as much as they pointed toward his own faithfulness, Edwards needed to find another way forward before his resolve fled away with the retreating summer sunlight.

Looking Outward

Some Edwards scholars believe that he quit writing his resolutions on August 17, 1723, because his “canon” was complete with the round biblical number of seventy. I think this conjecture is somewhat plausible. But I also think there is more to it. My own studies of Edwards’s personal writings have led me to conclude that he simply could not bear the pressures of his own heightened determinations.11

“To resolve was one thing, but to depend and rely upon Christ was another.”

When taken alone, the “Resolutions” are a powerful document indeed — even (and rightly) inspiring. But when reading his diary alongside the “Resolutions,” as synchronous and complementary documents, it seems that Edwards was building up spiritual pressures that his own soul was not able to withstand. The process of continually grading himself on paper may have become more than he could tolerate. Such periods of deep self-evaluation, when most honest, only proved that Edwards needed more and more grace. In other words, he could not live up to his own standards. To resolve was one thing, but to depend and rely upon Christ was another. And so, Edwards grew in his understanding of the daily necessity of dependence upon divine grace as superior to determination and resolution alone.

Along with this deepening understanding of his own sin and God’s grace, Edwards simply got busier and had less time to gaze in the spiritual mirror of his “Resolutions” and diary. His responsibilities in the church grew significantly when he was ordained to serve under Solomon Stoddard, and then again when he eventually became the solo pastor of the Northampton Church, one of the most significant congregations in the region. He did end up marrying the beautiful young woman he fell in love with as a teen. They had a large number of children, even by eighteenth-century standards (ten!). Edwards became preoccupied with preaching innumerable sermons, writing treatises, drafting letters, meeting with other ministers, and counseling his people’s distraught souls. He found that he was simultaneously growing as a believer, as a husband, as a father, and as a pastor.

And God was at work too in amazing ways that far transcended his own inward fascinations. A true revival began to occur — first in Northampton (1735) and then all across the Colonies (1740–42). Edwards had less occasion and opportunity to stew anxiously inwardly, even as it became more apparent that God was working outwardly all around him. This change in focus seems to me to be evidence of his spiritual maturity rather than any loss of devotion.

Relentless Reliance

At about age 40, a more mature Edwards could look back upon his 19-year-old self and write,

My longings after God and holiness, were much increased. Pure and humble, holy and heavenly Christianity, appeared exceeding amiable to me. I felt in me a burning desire to be in everything a complete Christian; and conformed to the blessed image of Christ: and that I might live in all things, according to the pure, sweet and blessed rules of the gospel. I had an eager thirsting after progress in these things. My longings after it, put me upon pursuing and pressing after them. It was my continual strife day and night, and constant inquiry, how I should be more holy, and live more holily, and more becoming a child of God, and disciple of Christ.12

True enough, the New York period had been a time of spiritual ecstasy for him. A veritable mountaintop. Edwards put these thoughts and other reflections together in a document that would become known as his “Personal Narrative.”13 This is one of the most important extant documents regarding Edwards’s own mature spiritual introspection. His own son-in-law, Aaron Burr Sr., had asked him to share more deeply about his soul’s growth over the years. In a key statement regarding his spiritual ecstasies during his period of time in New York City, Edwards makes a significant admission about the time in which the “Resolutions” were drafted. Listen carefully for the way Edwards acknowledges some imbalance in his spiritual life:

I sought an increase of grace and holiness, and that I might live an holy life, with vastly more earnestness, than ever I sought grace, before I had it. I used to be continually examining myself, and studying and contriving for likely ways and means, how I should live holily, with far greater diligence and earnestness, than ever I pursued anything in my life: but with too great a dependence on my own strength; which afterwards proved a great damage to me. My experience had not then taught me, as it has done since, my extreme feebleness and impotence, every manner of way; and the innumerable and bottomless depths of secret corruption and deceit, that there was in my heart. However, I went on with my eager pursuit after more holiness; and sweet conformity to Christ.14

In these crucial words, Edwards looks back fondly on the spiritual fervor that he had as a young man. He does not regret the resolutions, nor does he recant any of their lofty spiritual aims. As such, the “Resolutions” were well-founded.

“Growth, we might say, is better tracked over decades and years than weeks and days.”

At the same time, maturity as a husband, father, and pastor was just as necessary to his soul’s growth. He was enabled to see his own heart over a longer period of time than the “Resolutions” allowed him. He recognized that zealous resolve necessarily needs to be balanced by a relentless reliance on God’s ever-patient grace. That lesson would be learned over an extended trajectory of service, suffering, and daily reliance upon God’s goodness for us in Jesus Christ. Growth, we might say, is better tracked over decades and years than weeks and days.

He had learned experientially an incomparable lesson about sanctification: Jonathan Edwards needed more than his seventy resolutions for Christ. He needed Christ himself.

“Next to the Bible,” Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “the book I value most is John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. I believe I have read it through at least a hundred times. It is a volume of which I never seem to tire” (Pictures from Pilgrim’s Progress).

This describes my own experience well. Years ago, I picked up a copy of Pilgrim’s Progress, and I have never set it down. A bookmark steadily moves through its pages each year. I take it with me to bed, on vacation, and whenever I find a few moments to retreat for spiritual refreshment. Bunyan has so strengthened my pilgrimage that I count him as one of my dearest yet-to-meet friends.

“Bunyan has so strengthened my pilgrimage that I count him as one of my dearest yet-to-meet friends.”

With Spurgeon, I am both a pilgrim and a pastor. I am striving toward the Celestial City and helping others do the same. Bunyan’s brilliant story has made me a better pilgrim pastor, and I trust it can do the same for many others.

Learn from Evangelist

“Fly from the wrath to come,” the Evangelist cries. His sobering message alerts Christian that he must flee the City of Destruction and seek the Celestial City. Christian doesn’t understand everything Evangelist says, yet he heeds his warning. Loved ones call for Christian’s return, but he “put his fingers in his ears, and ran on, crying, Life! Life! Eternal life!” (5–6).

The ministry of Evangelist moves me with thankfulness to God. Like Christian, I was a sinner destined for destruction. Yet God mercifully sent over twenty witnesses to me before I believed. I didn’t want Jesus, but he wanted me. My pilgrimage began because evangelists came and warned me to flee destruction.

The courage of Evangelist has also emboldened me to resist the fear of man. He never cowers in his witness to Christian, but continually points to the source of eternal life. He endures Christian’s questions and reproves him after he falls prey to Mr. Worldly Wiseman. Even after Christian believes, Evangelist keeps pursuing, challenging, and encouraging him. Evangelist’s endurance has reminded me that we never stop pointing pilgrims toward their heavenly Home.

Saturate Your Soul with Scripture

One would be hard-pressed to find a page of Pilgrim’s Progress that doesn’t contain at least an allusion to Scripture. Spurgeon’s estimation of Bunyan as “a living Bible” is true: “Prick him anywhere — his blood is Bibline. . . . He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul is full of the Word of God” (C.H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 2:159). Bunyan loved the Bible, and he’s helped me love it too.

Every step of Christian’s journey is guided by the light of Scripture. Every conversation draws from it. Every trusted friend points him back to it. He holds it as precious, especially in his darkest hour. In the dungeon of Doubting Castle, Giant Despair tortures Christian and his beloved friend Hopeful, ordering them to take their own lives. Christian nearly succumbs, until he suddenly exclaims,

“What a fool . . . am I. . . . I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle.” . . . Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the dungeon door, whose bolt (as he turned the key) gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. (132)

I too have walked on the precipice of compromise and fallen into the pit of despair — and yet God’s word has given me strength to not give in or give up. The power of Pilgrim’s Progress is that Bunyan infuses God’s word into the characters’ lives and plot so creatively that I cannot help but delight in God’s word when I read it. Christian and his faithful friends cling to God’s precious promises through every trial until they pass into the land where faith becomes sight. Bunyan’s word pushes me into the word so that, like them, I may be helped to inherit eternal life.

Treasure Pilgrim Partners

The early part of my Christian life was isolated from the local church. I developed Christian friendships, but too often I walked alone. Yet as I have matured, I have learned that I am too weak to journey to heaven alone. I need pilgrim partners to help me persevere. Bunyan’s portrayal of the Christian life has only reaffirmed this reality.

God providentially provides friends for Christian in just the right seasons for just the right reasons. Help swoops in to save him from the Slough of Despond. Early in his walk, Interpreter teaches Christian to see with spiritual eyes. Faithful suffers with him in the crucible of Vanity Fair. Hopeful holds Christian back from succumbing to suicide. The saints at Palace Beautiful encourage Christian regarding his progress on the journey and exhort him to keep pressing on. Even in Christian’s dying moments, Hopeful helps him keep clinging to God’s promises.

Watching God providentially provide friends for Christian has helped me to treasure the friends he has given me. A wall in my office is covered with pictures of people God has used to pastor me and people he has given me the honor of pastoring. Each snapshot in time testifies to God’s providential love for me through those friends. Yet, as with some characters in Pilgrim’s Progress, some friends in the pictures have wandered and no longer seek a heavenly home. Their sorrowful departure sobers me to keep my eyes on Christ and not be lured away.

Watching Christian and his friends also inspires me to cultivate Christ-centered friendships. I want to love like Faithful and encourage like Hopeful. I want to run with a company of pilgrims whose hearts are set on heaven, knowing that no matter what we face, we will soon arrive in that land where we shall never say goodbye again.

Endure Suffering with Hope

Immediately upon setting out for the Celestial City, Christian and Pliable are met with trouble. While they struggle in the Slough of Despond, Pliable “began to be offended, and angrily said . . . ‘Is this the happiness you have told me all this while of? If we have such ill speed at our first setting out, what may we expect betwixt this and our journey’s end?’ . . . So away he went, and Christian saw him no more” (11).

This trial would not be Christian’s last. He ascends difficult hills, endures debilitating doubt, overcomes worldly deception, undergoes unjust trials, and narrowly escapes execution. He is constantly haunted by concern for his unsaved family and endures unrelenting spiritual warfare. Yet Christian presses on. Watching Christian teaches me that suffering pushes us — either toward God or away from him. In this way, suffering separates sheep from goats. Christian’s endurance also assures me that it is possible and profitable to continue pressing toward Home.

I am not typically given to discouragement, but in recent years the dark cloud has visited more often than I prefer. But observing Christian trust the Son, who ever shines on the other side of the cloud, encourages me to keep going. As with Christian, God has supplied a spring to accompany my difficulties. From this reservoir of grace, not only am I helped, but I am able to assist suffering sheep in their painful pilgrimage (2 Corinthians 1:3–4). Together we are limping toward glory, and the Lord does not despise feeble steps.

Set Your Heart on the Celestial City

Of all the aids Christian avails himself of, none is more vital than keeping his gaze on Zion’s shores. An eternal perspective strengthens the steps of pilgrim perseverance. Seeing Christian and Hopeful pass through the dark river and into Zion’s brings me deep joy.

The angels’ welcome causes redeemed hearts to dream:

There also you shall serve Him continually with praise, with shouting and thanksgiving. . . . There your eyes shall be delighted with seeing, and your ears with hearing the pleasant voice of the Mighty One. There you shall enjoy your friends again, that are gone thither before you. . . . When He shall again return to the city, you shall go too, with sound of trumpet, and be ever with Him. (182)

“An eternal perspective keeps all obstacles and afflictions in their proper perspective.”

God calls me and the people I pastor to set our hearts on this promised place. An eternal perspective keeps all obstacles and afflictions in their proper perspective. It shows us that the cost of following Christ will be abundantly worth it. Seeing God remain faithful to Christian assures me and those I pastor of this truth: ten thousand years from now, when we know what God knows, we will not accuse him of anything. He has always been faithful.

So keep an eternal perspective, fellow pilgrim. We’re almost Home.

On January 31, 1892, Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892) died in Menton, France, with his wife, Susie, at his bedside. His death was the deepest valley of Susie’s many years of suffering. While Charles’s body was transported back to London for a week of memorial services, Susie retreated to the estate of Thomas Hanbury, just across the Italian border and only a few miles from Menton, her grief and her physical affliction barring her from returning home immediately. There, as the blue waters of the Mediterranean kissed the Italian shoreline, Susie contemplated her future without Charles:

When the storms come, and our trees of delight are bare and leafless, when He strips us of the comforts to which His love has accustomed us — or more painful still, — when He leaves us alone in the world, to mourn the absence of the chief desire of our heart; — to sing to Him then, to bless and praise and laud His dear name then, this is the work of His free grace only. (The Sword and the Trowel, December 1903, 606)

For decades, Susie had borne the anxiety of Charles’s trials as well as the weight of her own poor health. Though youthful curls still donned her face, wrinkles betrayed the challenges of her life. Staring at the sea from the portico of the majestic Hanbury mansion a thousand miles from home, Susie determined to continue Charles’s gospel-centered ministry.

But how?

Hardworking Widow

Susie reflected back to 1875. The first volume of Charles’s book Lectures to My Students was about to be published, and Susie expressed a great desire for every pastor in England to receive a copy. Far from dismissing her idea, Charles encouraged her to act on her godly desire. And so began “Mrs. Spurgeon’s Book Fund.”

Now, seventeen years later, overlooking the Italian coast, Susie decided that the Book Fund would remain her first priority of ministry. This was no small commitment, for she would oversee every aspect of the Fund, and by the time she died in 1903, Susie had given over 200,000 books to 25,000 pastors — gifts that encouraged them, strengthened their churches, and promoted the gospel across the land.

While being the largest of Susie’s ministry endeavors, the Book Fund was only one among many ministries for the widow. In the mid-1890s, she helped plant Beulah Baptist Church at Bexhill-on-Sea. She also authored several books herself and even served as coeditor and major contributor to the four-volume C.H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography. All of this work grew from Susie’s commitment to labor for the glory of God, the good of many, and the promotion of her husband’s legacy. During their engagement, she had vowed never to hinder the preacher in his ministry, and though she was now aging, afflicted, and alone, she wouldn’t abandon the task.

Susie Meets Charles

Susannah (Susie) Thompson was born January 15, 1832, in London, the only daughter of Robert and Susannah Thompson. A London girl with big city ways, she made several trips to Paris during her youth in order to learn French. Her family attended New Park Street Chapel, where James Smith pastored (1842–1850), his evangelistic ministry provoking a desire in Susie for salvation and baptism. The desire was realized in 1852, when the 20-year-old Susie was converted. Due in part to her personality and in part to various cultural factors, however, she concealed her faith for a time.

In April of 1854, after the youthful Charles had arrived to serve as pastor of New Park Street Chapel, he learned of Susie’s spiritual struggles and gifted her his favorite book, John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, in order to assist her spiritual growth. This outreach by Charles pried open Susie’s shy heart. Charles counseled her to engage her faith in diligent Christian service, and his message stuck. At the same time, love blossomed between the two, and they were engaged in August of 1854. Susie was baptized by Charles in early 1855, and they were married on January 8, 1856. Twin sons followed, but shortly after their birth, the first major trial of the young couple’s marriage confronted them.

The Spurgeons’ Suffering

Charles and Susie honeymooned in Paris and enjoyed a full cultural experience, from art galleries to cathedrals. Susie spoke French fluently, but Charles not at all. He delighted in his new bride serving as his interpreter. After returning to London, they moved into their first residence together, a place that Susie called “Love Land” (Autobiography, 2:180). Her description of their first home is apt, for Charles and Susie enjoyed a delightful marriage of 36 years: affectionate and happily romantic. But woven into the fabric of their marriage were also seasons of dark suffering, separation, and sadness.

Music Hall Disaster

Charles was extremely busy the first year of their marriage: caring for a growing congregation, leading auxiliary ministries connected to the church, answering mounds of correspondence, and preaching across the British Isles, along with editing and writing. The Surrey Gardens Music Hall disaster on October 19, 1856, illustrates both the heights of Charles’s fame and the depths of his sorrows. Charles was but 22 years old when upwards of ten thousand people crowded the hall to hear him preach, with thousands more gathered outside. Early in the service, a contingency of mischief-makers yelled “Fire!” though there was no fire. Panic ensued, and in the rush to exit the building, seven people were trampled to death, and thirty more were badly injured. Spurgeon was inconsolable, and the future of his ministry seemed in doubt.

When Susie received the news at home, she hit her knees in prayer for the many sufferers and for her despondent husband. Though Spurgeon resumed his ministry a couple of weeks later, he was permanently scarred emotionally. Susie was an anchor in this storm as they looked to Christ together.

Physical Afflictions

Charles’s physical nemesis was gout. Later, kidney disease was added, and both were coupled with seasons of depression aggravated by memories of the disaster at the Music Hall.

For Susie’s part, in mid-1868 her church attendance began to wane, and from then until 1892, she rarely attended worship services due to physical ailments. In early 1869, she was operated on by the acclaimed gynecologist James Simpson, and though she was helped somewhat by the surgery, she nevertheless continued to suffer for the rest of her days.

Theological Controversies

Several controversies erupted throughout Charles’s ministry, but the one that most troubled him was known as the Down-Grade Controversy of 1887. At the heart of this controversy was what Charles saw as the undermining of fundamental biblical doctrines by some men in the Baptist Union. The disagreement led Charles to resign from the Union. Though not engaged directly in the controversy, Susie contended for the truth by increasing her Book Fund efforts, encouraging pastors to read doctrinally sound books. In her own way, she pushed back against the tide of theological liberalism alongside her husband. Susie believed that this controversy, with its corresponding loss of friendships, tragically accelerated Spurgeon’s death.

Humble, Steadfast Faith

Charles’s death in 1892 grieved but did not paralyze Susie. Throughout her life, Susie was motivated by Charles’s early words to her when she was facing doubts. “Active service brings with it warmth, and this tends to remove doubting, for our works thus become evidence of our calling and election” (Letters of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, 54). Charles’s words motivated Susie then and for all of her days. Yet it wasn’t only personal resolve that kept her going.

Proclaiming the true power behind her labor, Susie writes, “I look unto the Lord with humble, steadfast gaze, and receive courage and strength to press onward and upward in the path he has marked out for me!” (Free Grace and Dying Love, 101–2). This statement didn’t come cheaply, either, as if it were merely the product of an emotional moment. For Susie, Bible reading year after year and cover to cover, along with prayer and regular reading of the best soul-nourishing devotional writings of the day, cultivated a deep and abiding Christ-centeredness.

Susie’s story contains bountiful evidence of her faith in Christ and sacrificial service for his kingdom. Her son Charles wrote of her “labor for the Lord” even when “the mind was weary, and the body exceedingly weak” (The Sword and the Trowel, December 1903, 607). At her death, Susie’s other son, Thomas, wrote of how his mother’s life might speak to future generations:

Methinks she would press upon us, even more earnestly and sweetly than before, the preciousness of the Word, and our duty to hide it in our hearts. She would bid us prize and plead the promises. She would charge us to cling to the Cross and to cleave to that which is good. She would implore the unsaved at once to trust the finished work of Jesus. (The Sword and the Trowel, December 1903, 608)

Susie’s great-great-granddaughter, Susie Spurgeon Cochrane, writes, “When there were good times, she gave Him the praise, and when there were trials, she fell on her knees before Him, Again and again she went to the Fountain of Living Water and drank deeply from it. Then, and only then, was she able to do all that she did in her life” (Susie: The Life and Legacy of Susannah Spurgeon, 256).

The Bitter Is Sweet

Susie was the wife of the world’s most famous pastor, an author of books, a lover of the poor, a church-plant helper, and a devoted mother and grandmother. Though pressed in the vice of affliction and grief, Susie was determined to live with Christ as her life and the joy of others as her mission (Philippians 1:21–26).

On the tomb where Susie is buried beside Charles are inscribed the words of a hymn — words descriptive of her devotion to Jesus and hope for the future.

Since all that I meet shall work for my good,The bitter is sweet, the medicine is food.Though painful at present, wilt cease before long,And then, O! how pleasant, the conqueror’s song.