「似乎在死，看哪，我們卻活著。」－哥林多後書6:9
但因著種下的時機已經太晚，所以儘管剛開始時花兒簇擁著盛放，枝頂也結出子粒來，然而一經過初霜的寒氣，一長排鮮艷的花朵就紛紛凋落。
我難過的嘆息：「這天氣真是太殘酷了，他們竟一一凋零了。」於是我向他們揮手道別。
此後我便不再到那個花圃旁走動，因為不忍看見那座殘花墓園。直到四、五個星期以前，有人請我再去到那座花圃，我才驚喜的發現，我原以為被隆冬摧毀的花朵，竟然長出了五十株小小的新苗。
我就不禁想，到底風霜在這期間作了什麼事呢？
風霜將花朵掐在手上，了結了牠們的生命，並且將牠們扔在地上；挾著雪片的雙腳在牠們身上踐踏，離去時丟下一句：「這是你們的末日」。
但當隔年的春天降臨時，在死去的花朵根部，五十個復活的見證人起來宣告：「我們死裡得生」。
不要害怕遭受苦難，不要害怕被人打敗。
你雖然會被打倒，但你必不致滅亡；你雖然渾身是傷，體無完膚，但你終必剛強，成為一支大軍。
那些只注意表面工夫、隨波逐流的人，必然如曇花一現、隨風而逝。
－畢察
"As dying and behold we live" (2 Cor. 6:9).I had a bed of asters last summer, that reached clear across my garden in the country. Oh, how gaily they bloomed. They were planted 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! the season is too much for them; they have perished"; and I bade them farewell.
I 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 of 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 there were fifty plants that it had planted. What did those frosts and surly winds do?
They caught my flowers, they slew them, they cast them to the ground, they trod with snowy feet upon them, and they said, leaving their work, "This is the end of you." And the next spring there were for every root, fifty witnesses to rise up and say, "By death we live."
And as it is in the floral tribe, so it is in God's kingdom. By death came everlasting life. By crucifixion and the sepulchre came the throne and the palace of the Eternal God. By overthrow came victory.
Do not be afraid to suffer. Do not be afraid to be overthrown.
It is by being cast down and not destroyed; it is by being shaken to pieces, and the pieces torn to shreds, that men become men of might, and that one a host; whereas men that yield to the appearance of things, and go with the world, have their quick blossoming, their momentary prosperity and then their end, which is an end forever.--Beecher
