Turning, then, this old-time assurance into a word for nineteenth-century pilgrims, we get from it some important suggestions. For one thing it tells us that we may have some rugged pieces of road before we get to the end of our life-journey. If not, what need would there be for iron shoes? If the way is to be flower-strewn, velvet slippers, as Dr. McLaren somewhere suggests, would do. No man wants iron-soled shoes for a walk through a soft meadow. The journey is not likely to be all easy. Indeed, an earnest Christian life is never easy. No one can live nobly and worthily without struggle, battle, self-denial. One may find easy ways, but they are not the worthiest ways. They do not lead upward to the noblest things. One reason why many people never grasp the visions of beauty and splendor which shine before them in early years is because they have not courage for rough climbing. "I reach a duty, yet I do it not, And, therefore, climb no higher; but if done, My view is brightened, and another spot Seen on my mortal sun; For be the duty high as angel's flight-- Fulfil it, and a higher will arise Even from its ashes. Duty is our ladder to the skies, And climbing not, we fall." We shall need our iron shoes if we are to make the journey that leads upward to the best possibilities of our life. But the word is not merely a prophecy of rugged paths; it is also a promise of shoeing for the road, whatever it may be. One who is preparing to climb a mountain, craggy and precipitous, would not put on silk slippers; he would get strong, tough shoes, with heavy nails in the soles. When God sends us on a journey over steep and flinty paths he will not fail to provide us with suitable shoes. Asher's portion was not an accidental one; it was of God's choosing. Nor is there any accident in the ordering of the place, the conditions, the circumstances, of any child of God's. Our times are in God's hands. No doubt, then, the hardnesses and difficulties of any one's lot are part of the divine ordering for the best growth of the person's life.