
It was a very unequal struggle on which Pharaoh had entered; for he opposed not  the Hebrews, but Jehovah. It is thus that the great ones of this world have ever  spoken and acted. "Let us build a tower;" "Let us break their bands asunder, and  cast away their cords from us." "Against Thy holy child Jesus, both Herod and  Pontius Pilate were gathered together.'' In every case, He that sits in the  heavens has laughed at the boast of human pride. His cause and His people's are  one. Yet times of affliction have always been on times of  multiplication.
In the history of the Church. - When has she made her  greatest number of adherents? When her pulpits have been filled with eloquent  preachers, and her aisles crowded with fashion and wealth? No; but when she has  been driven to the dens and caves of the earth, and her sons have been  proscribed outcasts. The real triumphs of the early Church were in the first  centuries of opprobrium and persecution; her decline began when Constantine made  Christianity the religion of the State.
In the history of each earnest  soul. - It is rarely the case that we make much spiritual headway when winds and  currents favor us. We do best when all is against us. We grow quickest in the  dark. In times of persecution we realize the security, and comfort, and joy,  which are in Christ Jesus our Lord; and as God goes the round of the world, it  is in chambers of pain, sickness, and bereavement, that He beholds the  multiplication of the choice graces of holy character and temper. The  affliction, which is for the moment, is working out an exceeding weight of  glory.