the latter is greater

excerpts from a book written by George Matheson, a blind Scottish preacher:

"There is a time coming in which your glory shall consist on the very thing which now constitutes your pain.  Nothing could be more sad to Jacob than the ground on which he was lying, a stone for his pillow! It was the hour of his poverty.  It was the season of his night.  It was the seeming absence of his God.  The Lord was in the place and he knew it not.  Awakened from his sleep he found that the day of his trial was the dawn of his triumph!  Ask the great ones of the past what has been the spot of their prosperity and they will say, 'It was the cold ground on which I was lying.'  Ask Abraham; he will point you to the sacrifice on Mount Moriah.  Ask Joseph; he will direct you to his dungeon.  Ask Moses; he will date his fortune from his danger in the Nile.  Ask Ruth; she will bid you build her monument in the field of her toil.  Ask David; he will tell you that his songs came from the night.  Ask Job; he will remind you that God answered him out of the whirlwind.  Ask Peter; he will extol his submersion in the sea.  Ask John; he will give the path to Patmos.  Ask Paul; he will attribute his inspiration to the light which struck him blink.  Ask one more!--the Son of God.  Ask Him whence has come His rule over the world; He will answer, 'From the cold ground on which I was lying--the Gethsemane ground--I received my sceptre there.'  Thou too, my soul, shall be garlanded by Gethsemane!  The cup thou fain wouldst pass from thee will be thy coronet in the sweet by and by.

"The hour of thy loneliness will crown thee.  The day of thy depression will regale thee.  It is thy desert that will break forth into singing.  It is the trees of thy silent forest that will clap their hands.  The last things will be first in the sweet by and by.  The thorns will be roses.  The vales will be hills.  The crooks will be straight lines, the ruts will be level.  The shadows will be shining.  The losses will be promotions.  The tears will be tracks of gold.  The voice of God to thine evening will be this: 'Thy treasure is hid in the ground, where thou wert lying.'"