There is something morbid in this conception. The invitation to the religious life becomes gruesome. The sister of Pascal cared for him through a long and serious illness. Pascal came to love her so much that he feared that his affection was wicked. In a gloomy hour he wrote in his diary these words, "Lord, forgive me for loving my dear sister so much!" Afterward his abnormal conscience worked again, and Pascal actually erased the word "dear." For such moods the Bible has a lesson. God "giveth us richly all things to enjoy." We would think it small glory for ourselves if our children should push our gifts away from their little hands with the idea that those selected gifts were perilous. God fills the world with possibilities of pleasure. Food and drink are not negative and tasteless. The paths of earth are not flowerless. Voices are not without music. Companionship is not lifeless. The Bible is the foe of wicked pleasure. The Bible is the foe of excessive pleasure. The Bible is the friend of legitimate and proportionate pleasure. But while pleasure needs to be guarded and curbed, it is not either a burden to be lifted or a pain to be endured. Sorrow is both. Therefore sorrow demands some positive services from the Bible. We may be impatient with those doleful folks who speak of this world as a vale of tears or as a wilderness of woe! We may be inclined to quote the lines: I think we are too ready with complaint In this fair world of God's. On the other hand, it is well to remember that the young, especially, see life almost exclusively from the standpoint of hope and courage. The minister of the gospel begins to feel, when he reaches the age of forty, that he has not given enough comfort to his people. As he identifies himself closely with their lives he finds that most homes carry some secret sorrow and that most men and women have their own personal tragedies. You will recall the myth about the boatman whose duty it was to carry over the Styx the souls who departed from earth. He noticed that these souls mourned much and took the voyage unwillingly. He thought that it must be a very beautiful and joyful land that laid such hold on their hearts. So he secured leave of absence from his post of duty and made an excursion into the world. He discovered that for every birth there must eventually be a death; that every home that was made must in due season be broken; that men and women were troubled and maimed and sick. On all sides he saw the evidences of sorrow. He went back to his ferry greatly wondering why people should be sad because they left a sad world. This mythical picture is overdrawn, but it has its suggestion of truth. Earth does have its manifold sorrows. If all the burdens and pains and problems and anguishes of a single day could focus their influence upon any single life, the result would be either a broken heart or an insane mind.