There are a good many hard times in this life of ours, but we can always bear them if we ask help in the right way, and try to do our duty bravely; for though the burdens are heavy, they grow lighter as we share them, and the road, though rough at first, gets easier to the feet that keep on walking.
Help is both prayer and people. Marmee’s sentence yokes duty to relief, not guilt. The road-and-burden metaphors make endurance tactile. In context, her counsel steadies a trying week. It turns suffering into shared work and forward motion. Readers get usable hope instead of slogans. Keep walking; it will ease.