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「似乎要死，卻是活著。」（聖經哥林多後書六章 9 節）
有一年夏天，我在鄉間園子裡修了一個長方形的花圃，種著紫菀花，花開茂盛。但它們下種是很晚，當枝頂結子的時候，兩側還在萌出鮮花。初霜降臨後，我發現那些艷麗的花朵凋萎了，我嘆道：「唉，它們受不住這裡的氣候，都完了」。我向它們告別。
我不願再去看那花圃，它的樣子落到好像一個花的墳場。但到了翌年春天，有一位園丁請我注意那塊花圃，已長滿了極其茂盛的紫菀；我去一看，只見那我認為在去年冬季枯萎而死的每一株紫菀，卻已經繁殖了五十株新苗。去年冬季的冰霜和寒風，完成了繁殖紫菀的任務，我問自己：是破壞呢？是建設呢？
當那去年冬季的寒風將紫菀花橫施摧折，吹擲滿地，用沾雪的腳任意踐踏，並且說：「這是你們的末日。」到了第二年的春天，每一枝殘花的所在卻長出了根來，說道：「我們因死得生。」
在植物界如此，在天國也是如此。從死亡裡茁出了不朽的生命。永生真神的寶座和宮殿，得自十字架和墳墓。勝利得自失敗。
不要怕受苦，不要怕失敗。
凡是偉人常被打倒而未被消滅，先被折磨得片片粉碎，然後才能變成偉人，才能力敵千軍；而那些只顧眼前的人，隨俗浮沉，必然曇花一 現，在短暫的興旺之後，隨即消逝，而永劫不復。 ── 皮邱
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"As dying and behold we live." (2 Cor. 6:9.)
I had a bed of asters last summer, that reached clear across my garden in the country. Oh, how gaily they bloomed. They were planted late. On the sides were yet fresh blossoming flowers, while the tops had gone to seed. Early frosts came, and I found one day that that long line of radiant beauty was seared, and I said, "Ah! The season is too much for them; they have perished"; and I bade them farewell.
I disliked to go and look at the bed, it looked so like a graveyard of flowers. But, four or five weeks ago one of my men called my attention to the fact that along the whole line of that bed there were asters coming up in the greatest abundance; and I looked, and behold, for every plant that I thought the winter had destroyed there were fifty plants that it had planted. What did those frosts and surly winds do?
They caught my nowers, they slew them, they cast them to the ground, they trod with snowy feet upon them, and they said, leaving their work, "This is the end of you." And the next spring there were for every root, fifty witnesses to rise up and say, "By death we live."
And as it is in the floral tribe, so it is in God's kingdom. By death came everlasting life. By crucifixion and the sepulchre came the throne and the palace of the Eternal God. By overthrow came victory.
Do not be afraid to suffer. Do not be afraid to be overthrown.
It is by being cast down and not destroyed; it is by being shaken to pieces, and the pieces torn to shreds, that men become men of might, and that one a host; whereas men that yield to the appearance of things, and go with the world, have their quick blossoming, their momentary prosperity and then their end, which is an end forever. --Beecher.
"Measure thy life by loss and not by gain,
Not by the wine drunk, but by the wine poured forth.
For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice,
And he who suffers most has most to give."
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