[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4},["ShallowReactive",2],{"reading-1011":3},"OCTOBER 11\r\nAs dying and behold we live (2 Cor. 6:9).\r\nI had a bed of asters last summer, that reached clear across my\r\ngarden in the country. Oh, how gaily they bloomed. They were\r\nplanted late. On the sides were yet fresh blossoming flowers, while the tops had gone to seed. Early frosts came, and I found one day  that that long line of radiant beauty was seared, and I said, \"Ah!\r\nthe season is too much for them; they have perished\"; and I bade them farewell.\r\nI disliked to go and look at the bed, it looked so like a graveyard  of flowers. But four or five weeks ago one of my men called my   attention to the fact that along the whole line that bed there were asters coming up in the greatest abundance; and I looked, and    behold, for every plant that I thought the winter had destroyed\r\nthere were fifty plants that it had planted. What did those frosts and surly winds do?\r\nThey caught my flowers, they slew them, they cast them to the\r\nground, they trod with snowy feet upon them, and they said, leaving their work, \"This is the end of you.\" And the next spring there\r\nwere for every root fifty witnesses to rise up and say, \"By death we live. \"\r\nAnd as it is in the floral tribe, so it is in God's kingdom. By\r\ndeath came everlasting life. By crucifixion and the sepulchre came the throne and the palace of the Eternal God. By overthrow came   victory.\r\nDo not be afraid to suffer. Do not be afraid to be overthrown.\r\nIt is by being cast down and not destroyed; it is by being shaken\r\nto pieces, and the pieces torn to shreds, that men become men of\r\nmight and that one a host; whereas men that yield to the appearance\r\nof things, and go with the world, have their quick blossoming,   their momentary prosperity and then their end, which is an end forever. --Beecher.\r\nMeasure thy life by loss and not by gain,\r\nNot by the wine drunk, but by the wine poured forth. For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice,\r\nAnd he who suffers most has most to give.",1783499793935]