FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 137 



XXV. 



&quot; GOD tempers the wind to the shorn 

 lamb.&quot; Though it was Laurence Sterne 

 that wrote it, I am sure that no indignity 

 has been done the Bible by its common 

 attribution to that source, and it is no less 

 truly descriptive of the fact than if it were 

 to be found upon the pages of the holiest of 

 books. For though his ways are said not 

 to be as our ways and his thoughts not to 

 be as our thoughts, and though the sun rises 

 upon the evil and upon the good, and the 

 rain falls upon the just and the unjust alike, 

 nevertheless the winds are tempered in a 

 very real fashion. For what matters it 

 how biting the blast, if we do not feel it ? 

 And is it not the universal human experi 

 ence that how sore soever troubles may be, 

 the neck gradually becomes accustomed to 

 the yoke, the new conditions are accepted 

 as a part of the natural order, and we grad 

 ually find ourselves adjusted to them ? Even 

 though at first it seems as if all the sweet 

 ness had gone out of life, as if in future, 



