“Laid Aside. Why?” Spurgeon answered his own question by concluding that such times are “the surest way to teach us that we are not necessary to God’s work, and that when we are most useful he can easily do without us.” Here and elsewhere Spurgeon noted the potential benefits of pain. In a sermon published in 1881 he maintained, “In itself pain will sanctify no man: it may even tend to wrap him up within himself, and make him morose, peevish, selfish; but when God blesses it, then it will have a