To cry is not weakness, for tears are evidences of strong character. We have always loved Mark Twain, enjoying his travels as much as he, and laughing away dreary hours with his bubbling humor. But humor never revealed the true man he really was. It was not until his daughter died, and he sat all alone at home on Christmas day, amid the unopened gifts, and broken hopes of life, and wrote the matchless story of her death, that the world caught glimpse of the real Mark Twain. Beholding her lying there so quietly, he said: “Would I call her back to life if I could do it? I would not. If a word would do, I would beg for strength to withhold the word. And I would have the strength; I am sure of it. In her loss I am almost bankrupt, and my life is a bitterness, but I am content; for she has been enriched with the most precious of all gifts--that gift which makes all other gifts mean and poor--death.” It required the teardrop to reveal the real character of Mark Twain. While for our friends we would have nothing but golden hours, for ourselves the rosary of tears is the most precious treasure we possess. None other creates such a spirit of devotion, none other so thoroughly prepares us for conquest; none other opens the heart to those diviner emotions which should thrill the inner life of all. The golden beads will become tiresome, but the crystal rosary of tears will always be attractive. Count over its beads. There are the large, fast-falling tears of childhood. Tell them one by one, and behold how they bring back the holy memories and yearnings for childhood purity and childhood faith. Hold fast those blessed beads that were once kissed away by a mother’s lips, but still sparkle in the light of her precious love. There too are the glittering tears of youthful ambitions, when the heart burned with passion, the brain whirled with plans for conquest, and the eyes were moist with tears of hope. How precious those tears that have long since ceased to flow! But they are not lost. We still have them on our rosary when we offer prayer, and the touching of them revives our old-time hopes. There also are the tears of love. The busy, all-consuming fires of worldly ambition cannot dry them away. They gleam in the eye every time memory presents the portrait of that precious face. How wonderful to love until the eyes blind with tears of ecstasy! There too are the priceless tears of sympathy. The sight of another’s wrong or sorrow unloosed the fountains of the deep, and your heart responded. In order to right the wrong you gave yourself to work of reform, and made your influence a powerful factor in the remaking of the world. There, gleaming more beautiful than all, are the tears of sorrow. They were shed at the side of the grave; they came into the eye at the sight of an empty chair. How unbearable the world until relief came in a flood of tears! Only through tears do we find the sweetest comfort.