It is. not so much from what trials or sorrows we suffer, but how we suffer—the extent or amount of our sufferings—which determines the purpose of God in them; with every suffering, be it imaginary or otherwise, it is as l feel it that God purposes that a corresponding virtue of His grace should grow up in me. The suffering is to bring out a peculiar virtue from His own grace which no other suffering could bring out Certain preparations bring out certain desired colors. It is through the tears of the firmament that the colors of the rainbow are obtained, But I mean more than this; the suffering, or the depression, indicate the nature of the contrast or correlative which this pressure is appointed to elicit. If the pressure is great and peculiar, then some great and peculiar characteristic of the grace within is thereby to be evoked.
You thresh wheat for the grain, but you grind the grain to make flour—the produce is useful according to the severity and peculiarity of the process by which it is made available for use. We dry grapes for raisins; we bruise them for wine. Yet, the same grapes which make raisins might have been made wine if only they had been subjected to a more severe pressure.