You do not need to extensively in Christian history or Christian biography to spot the connection between sorrow and sanctification. Though it is certainly not always the case, very often the people who are particularly used by the Lord are the same people who endure suffering. De Witt Talmage makes this point well in a quote from one of his sermons.
Call the roll of all the eminently pious of all the ages and you will find them the sons and daughters of sorrow. The Maronites say that one characteristic of the cedar tree is that when the air is full of snow, and it begins to descend, the tree lifts its branches in a way better to receive the snow and bear up under it, and I know by much observation that the grandest cedars of Christian character lift higher their branches toward God, when the snows of trouble are coming. Lord Nelson’s coffin was made out of the masts of the ship L’Orient, in which he had fought so bravely, and your throne in heaven, oh, suffering child of God, will be built out of conquered earthly disasters.
What gave John Bunyan such a
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