Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1913-02-06
BRIGHT DAYS
AND DARK
b REV. DONALD SAGE MAcKAY
D. D., LID.

How much the counterbalance plays
Its part In the activities of human life!
Our bright days are counterbalanced
by dark days. Our times of prosper
ity are Offset by times of adversely.
For every sorrow there is in the d.
vine providence. corresponding gain.
and at the heart Of every defeat there
Is for the man of faith the
prophecy of new victory Go
where we will in the great universe
of love and we find everywhere the
working of this divine law of counter
poise-the divine love compromising
OF every earthly loss. Where sin
abounds grace doth much more
abound" Where death walks with
insolent feet life triumphs in exultant
song. When earthly joys wither heav-
emily hope blooms in eternal beauty.
When time wears out its venture into
threadbare decay eternity robes her.
self in immortal splendor.
We want to realize, of course, that
these bright days and dark in life
which alternate in such swift success
sion are all part of a divine plan
These fleeting changes of prosperity
and adversely, joy and sorrow, life
and death, are not haphazard. They
are not the chance happenings of a
cruel and needless fate. Nor are they
ebullitions fckleness in God, or for
getfulness of his children. Not to
tantalize and tease the soul, not that
we may take our joys with trembling
and our sorrows with cringing does
our Heavenly Father set the dark days
over against the bright days in life
God sends these seasons for the
growth Of what is worthless and best
within us. The dark days and the
bright days are as necessary to the
| poise of your character as the counter
balance is necessary to the equilibri.
UNI of the wheel. 1t needs no pro-
| found thinking to realize what grind
| ing monotony life would be if there
were no shadows to Offset it's sunlight.
What an insipid thing joy would be.
come-a surfeit in the banquet of life
| If there we're no bitters to cleanse
| the palate of the soul
These bright days and dark days
| In life as they come and go, some.
times in rhythmic cadence and some.
| times in bewildering confusion, are al
80 part of divine revelation They
are days of revealing as we'll as days
Of discipline. God sends these alter
mating seasons into your life to reveal
certain qualities within you, to call
into play certain capacities, to make
vital certain possibilities in your ma
ture which the monotony of an un-
broken experience could never bring.
The changing days of life unmask the
reserves of character. 1t is, of course,
a truism that man never knows how
much he can endure until the day of
adversely comes. 1t has been pointed
out that Walter Scott became great as
man and realized the highest ex.
preston of his genius not until the
wave of adversely swept over his life.
A writer has pointed out the common
place character of Scott's personal
journal up to the time before the fail.
ure Of his publishes took place. But
| after that failure new note became
vocal in the great writer's journal, a
new personality emerged One re
members in this connection the letter
which upon the day succeeding the
news OF the disaster Scott wrote to
an intimate friend: II have walked
for the las. time~in these halls which
have built, looked for the last time
in all probability at the domain which
! have planted, but death would have
taken these things from me If mis-
fortune had not. :" The letter concludes
with the words. Adversely is to me
q tonic and a bracer." Look at thai
manuscript" says Ruskin, referring tc
SCOTS novel Of Woodstock" which
was in course of writing at the time
written in the very maelstrom of thai
adversely and not by the CULVER Of 8
hair stroke, not by the suggestion o
4 q single tremor in the hand, not by ar
erasure or change. not by any falling
on in the creative interest of the story
could any one detect that when Scot
wrote the second part Of that move
he did so under cloud of bitter ad
iversity.''
And biography is full Of such I'm
maskings Of the pressure Of the darl
days succeeding the bright days Ii
life. Milton's personality became !
far more potent influence after blind
ness had stricken him. The loss o,
physical sight intensified the keennes.
of spiritual vision. Had Bunyan never
lain in Bedford jail he had nevteIl
dreamed the Pilgrims Progress
Had Tom Hood never known for him
|self the bitterness Of want and the
ache OF pain he had never sung the
Song of the Shirt" or sobbed out hi,
immortal dirge. The Bridge 81
sighs." Had David never fallen as he
did the world would never have fell
the passion Of pentience and aspira
ton Of heart which breathed through
some such psalm as the fifty-first. Had
i John never been banished to the Is
land Of Patmos We should never have
had the revelation of heaven az he ID.
untolded Its glorfes Ia the last bo6l
as Scripture. IA n sense. most solemn
For al. had Christ never passed throuxi
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