THE BLESSING OF ADVERSITY.
Did you ever think, when in a pessimistic mood, when your life is clouded with distrust and disappointment, and you even wish to die, that perhaps while you are in this state of misery and despair, you may be playing your part in the great plan of creation, and brightening some field of life for contemporaries or posterity? Many a great genius has pined in solitude and misery, and thought he was of no use in the world, when he was really blessing thousands. Said Lord Bacon, "Virtue, like sweet odors, is most fragrant when crushed." Milton, stricken with blindness, undertook the production of that masterpiece of English literature, of which Cowper said: "Was there ever anything so delightful as the music of 'Paradise Lost'? It is like that of a fine organ—has the fullest and deepest tones of majesty, with all the softness and elegance of the Dorian flute." Paganini, in prison, and reduced to the extreme of finding diversion on a violin with but a single string, gained such skill that he achieved a musical miracle, and wrought wondrous melody on the G string alone, an art that has been copied by later performers to the delight of listening hundreds. And so on through the whole list of geniuses that have been brightened by adversity.—Selected.