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20 BYWAYS TO BLESSEDNESS

Painful burdens are necessary, but only so long as we lack love and wisdom.
The Temple of Blessedness lies beyond the outer courts of suffering and humiliation and to
reach it the pilgrim must pass through the outer courts. For a time he will linger in the outer, but
only so long as, through his own imperfect understanding, he mistakes it for the inner. While he
pities himself and confounds suffering with holiness he will remain in suffering: but when, casting
off the last unholy rag of self-pity, he perceives that suffering is a means and not an end, that it is a
state self-originated and self-propagated, then, converted and right-minded, he will rapidly pass
through the outer courts, and reach the inner abode of peace.
Suffering does not originate in the perfect but in the imperfect; it does not mark the complete
but the incomplete; it can, therefore, be transcended. Its self-born cause can be found,
investigated, comprehended, and for ever removed.

It is true therefore, that we must pass through agony to rest, through loneliness to peace; but
let the sufferer not forget that it is a “passing through;” that the agony is a gateway and not a
habitation; that the loneliness is a pathway and not a destination; and that a little farther on he
will come to the painless and blissful repose.
Little by little is a burden accumulated; imperceptibly and by degrees is its weight increased. A
thoughtless impulse, a gross self-indulgence, a blind passion yielded to and gratified again and
again; an impure thought fostered, a cruel word uttered, a foolish thing done time after time, and
at last the gathered weight of many follies becomes oppressive. At first, and for a time, the weight
is not felt; but it is being added to day after day, and the time comes when the accumulated burden
is felt in all its galling weight, when the bitter fruits of selfishness are gathered, and the heart is
troubled with the weariness of life. When this period arrives let the sufferer look to himself; let
him search for the blessed way of burden-dropping, finding which he will find wisdom to live
better, purity to live sweeter, love to live nobler; will find, in the reversal of that conduct by which
his burdens were accumulated, light-hearted nights and days, cheerful action, and unclouded joy.
“Come out of the world — come above it —
Up over its crosses and graves;

Though the green earth is fair and I love it,
We must love it as masters, not slaves,
Come up where the dust never rises —
But only the perfume of flowers —
And your life shall be glad with surprises
Of beautiful hours.”