Reject not the place of thy prostration...

My soul,
reject not the place of thy prostration,
it has been the robing room of royalty.
Ask the great ones of the past
what has been the spot of their prosperity,
they will say
"it was the cold ground on which I was lying".

Listen to this:
Ask Abraham, he will point you to the sacrifice of Moriah.
Ask Joseph, he will direct you to his dungeon.
Ask Moses, he will date his fortune from the danger of the Nile.
Ask Ruth, she will bid you build her a monument in the field of her toil.
Ask David, he will tell you that his songs came from the night.
Ask Job, and he will remind you that God answered him out of a whirlwind.
Ask Peter, he will extol his submission of the sea.
Ask John, he will give you the Psalm of Patmos.
Ask Paul, he will attribute his inspiration to the light that struck him blind on the Damascus road.
Ask one more, the Son of Man, 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 scepter there''.

Thou, too, my soul, shalt 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 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 mist will be heat; 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 art lying."

• V. Raymond Edman quoting George Matheson, blind Scottish theologian and preacher, in his book The Disciplines of Life, World Wide Publications; Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn edition, 1948