A STATE of happiness is not always the state of highest blessedness. Our really best days, when we learn the most and grow the most, are not always nor usually our gladdest days. It was our Lord himself who said, "Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted." The beatitude is not for those who laugh, but for those who weep. The meaning must be that God has blessings which he can give only when the heart is in sorrow or pain; and that God's comfort, which makes the beatitude, is such a precious and enriching experience that it is quite worth while to mourn that we may gain that beatitude. The comfort far more than compensates for the grief, and we cannot get the comfort unless we have the grief. One might dread the coming of night; but he would never know of the glory of the heavens, with their starry splendors, if night did not come. And we should never see the glorious divine promises, nor realize the precious joys and hopes of Christian faith, if the shadow of sorrow never deepened about us. The child never fully understands the sweetness and gentleness of the mother's love, until it is sick or suffering; and we can never experience the blessedness of being drawn close to God's heart, and comforted by him "as one whom his mother comforteth," if we do not have pain or grief. So it is a blessed thing to mourn, just to have God comfort us.—S. S. Times.