It may be so with you, poor man or woman. You do not get all the sweet now. This shall be a memory to you in Heaven, long ages hence. The wrestling you have now may minister to you high delight, keen enjoyment and rapture pure and abiding. Who can tell when God’s rewards end? Who will venture to say: “This is the measure of His benediction?” God is able to give and to do abundantly beyond all that we ask or think. Should any one inquire of you as to your compensation, say: “It is given by instalments--today and tomorrow, in death; in the resurrection, all through the ages of eternity. Ask me thousands of ages hence, and I will reply to your question concerning compensation.” Life is not limited by the cradle and the tomb, and it is not between these two mean and near points that great questions are to be discussed or determined. Job has been read by countless readers. His was, of course, a public trial--a tragedy that was wrought out for the benefit of multitudes in all generations. Nevertheless, it is literally and pathetically true that every man, even the most obscure, has his readers--fewer in number, it may be, but equally earnest in attention. Think you that your children are not taking notice of you--seeing how you bear your temptations, difficulties and anxieties? Think you not that your eldest boy is kept away from the table of the Lord because you are as atheistic in sorrow as ever Voltaire was? Do you know that your daughter hates the church because her pious father is only pious in the three Summer months of the year? He curls under the cold and biting wind as much as any Atheist ever did. Therefore, the girl says: “He is a sham and a hypocrite--my father in the flesh, but no relative of mine in the spirit.” You have your readers. The little Bible of your life is read in your kitchen, in your parlor, in your shop and in your warehouse; and if you do not bear your trials, anxieties and difficulties with a Christian chivalry and heroism, what is there but mockery on Earth and gloating in hell? May God give us grace to bear chastisement nobly and serenely; bless us with the peace which passeth understanding--with the quietness kindred to the calm of God; help us when death is in the house, when poverty is on the hearth-stone. When there is a storm blinding the only poor little window we have, let us say: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. If I perish I will pray, and perish only here.” That is Christianity--not some clever chatter and able controversy about metaphysical points; but noble temper, high behavior, faultless constancy and an invincible fortitude in the hour of trial and in the agony of pain. MICAIAH.