It is so hard, my friend, that, if you can bear it and not be conquered by it, you are a hero. If under that load you can keep your patience and your temper and your courage, you have won a victory such as makes life worth living. Just as in battle it is the post of danger that is most honorable, so always the hard place is the place of honor. "But," you say perhaps, "I don't care about being a hero; I want to see my wife and children taken care of." That is the best of all reasons for keeping up heart. When a good wife sees her husband unfortunate and out of work, what is it that she most dreads? Not that they will starve,--starvation seldom happens in this country. Not that they will be poor, though of that she may be somewhat afraid. Her greatest fear is lest her husband should get discouraged and down-hearted; should take to drink, perhaps; at any rate, should become so despondent and embittered that the light shall go out of their lives and their children's. Now it is his business not to let that happen. It is his part to keep up for her sake a resolute heart and a cheerful face. And if she is a true woman, how gladly will she do the same for him! Out of just such circumstances there come two opposite results, according as people meet them. There comes failure of effort and resolution, then despondency, then recklessness, drunkenness perhaps, and at last ruin, the break-up of character, the destruction of the children's prospects, or sometimes suicide. When a man, under pressure of such trouble, really gives up, even for an hour, the effort to be brave and make the best of things, he takes a step on a road at the end of which is suicide. _That_ is the consummate act of cowardice; that is the last logical result of refusing to face and conquer our troubles. Heaven have mercy on the man who seeks in death a refuge, and so multiplies the suffering of those he leaves behind! And at the point where begins the wretched road of despondency, which if followed out leads to this or some other ruin, there branches another road--manly endurance of the worst, courage which is strong because it is loving,--a road which leads to heights beyond our sight. To bear trouble together, and for each other's sake to rise above it,--what knits hearts together like that?