THROUGH THE MILL.

Waikato Argus, Volume III, Issue 221, 11 December 1897, Page 2 (Supplement)

THROUGH THE MILL.

You object to the mill, you say, and yet it it that samn proooss of grinding which converts the grain into flour fit for bread. Look at the untried man, the youth embarking on his career, vain ignorant, sanguine, over-confident, prejudiced. How is he to loam his own powers, his capabilities of endurance, his energy under difficulties, above all, his readiness of resource, save by repeated disappointmsntss and revers* ? I grant the proems is not entirely pleasant ; 1 grant you that effort is with many men a sensation of discomfort almost amounting to pain ; that sslf-dcnial is very difficult to most, disappointment simply disgusting to all. When the body feels weiry, the brain overtaskod, we are apt to think the meal is being boltod too fine, the grinding bocoining unnecessarily severe ; above all, when that pitiless millstone comes crushing down upon the li9art and pounds it to powder, we cry aloud in our agony and protest that no sorrow was ever so unbearable as ours. What mole working underground is so blind as humanity to its own good ? hy, that same grinding to powder is the only means by which tho daintiest flour cau be obtained. The finest nature, like tne truest steel, must be tempered in tho hottest furnace; bo much caloric would bo thrown awiy on an inferior metal. Capacity for suffering infers also capacity for achievement; and who would grudge the pai» about his brows, it reminded him ho was wearing an imperial crown. Sooner or later the process must bo undergone by all. With some it goes on through a lifetimo ; others get tho worst over in a few years. One man may have done with it altogether beforohis strength of mind or body his failed-with declining age* His neighbour may have one foot in tho grave before the grain has been thoroughly purged and sifted and refined to its purest quality, but through the mill ho must pass. It is just asmuch anccessityof humanity ashunger, or thirst, or sorrow, or decay. There is no escapj. However long protracted, it is inexorable, unavoidable and offectual for Though the mills of God giiud slowly, Yet they griud exceeding small." G. J. Wiirra Mklville (F)