a grateful heart, on the receipt of some signal blessing from above, if not in the precise words, at least the same tone of thanksgiving, with the religious patriarch? "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth which Thou hast showed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands." (Gen. 32. 10.)

Have you, on the other hand, been visited by some sore and lingering affliction: wave after wave perhaps rolling over you; trial after trial, in every shape; and you have been ready to cry out in the anguish of your soul, 'Lord show me wherefore thou contendest with me?' If affliction have done its work in you, and you have been attentive in observing the ways and manner of God's dealings in that particular instance, you are now, as from a distance, enabled to view the causes of those trials in their true light. You now see, (what you did not so distinctly discern when under their immediate pressure,) that they formed so many links in a hidden chain by which a kind Providence was conducting you from sin and misery to happiness and peace. Ye were, perhaps, as children tossed to and fro; wavering betwixt God and the world. And in this state of irresolution you had still continued, had not He, with the merciful de

sign of a true parent, led and attached you to Himself by methods which ye knew not then when ye knew not God, nor the reasons of such discipline just as a child comprehends not the full meaning of parental chastisement, nor sees how or in what way it shall conduce to his eventual good. Now, however, by comparing the former state of your ignorance with the selfknowledge you have attained to by the transforming process of divine grace, slow perhaps (like all other operations of Providence, at least as we count slackness) but sure; severe, but salutary; so far from complaining that your way was dark, and that Providence led you through by-paths, you rather rejoice in this feature of the dispensation, inasmuch as you now know by experience, that His ways are not your ways, nor His thoughts your thoughts. You can now understand, that had your path been smooth, and strewed with flowers, you had loved this present world instead of God: and in the plenitude of sensual enjoyment, and carnal security, would have been ready to exclaim, 'It is good for me to be here. Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.' This had been your feeling, rather than that derived from "the wisdom which is from above;"It is good for me

to have been afflicted, that I might learn Thy statutes. Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept thy word.' Happy, thrice happy Christian, thus to be taught of God: thus threading, as it were, the mazes of Providence, at length to triumph in Christ, in loving God, and in knowing thyself! Hence, with the Apostle, you "glory in tribulations: knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope:" a hope that maketh not ashamed, that deceives not the long tried, disciplined, approved Christian. You rest not your peace and serenity upon one or two moral victories achieved over the enemies of your salvation, but on perpetual warfare, a series of conquests, and not on any one great decisive blow. You know the hidden virtue of those words of holy writ, "We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of heaven." We are not made perfect but by suffering. And whereas the sincere follower of Christ is content with nothing less than perfection, that is, a sincere desire to do the whole will of God, and to be holy in all manner of conversation; you patiently, yea, joyfully, acquiesce in whatever dispensation God may see good to adopt respecting you.

The key, then, that unlocks to the Christian's

view the designs of a merciful though mysterious Providence is, in one word, Faith:-a deep, and rational, and experimental conviction of the power, the wisdom, the love of God, made known to him in his Son Jesus Christ. And such a faith supposes and includes, first, a spirit of simple reliance upon, and tranquil acqui escence in, the absolute right which a Scripturally revealed God, as our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, exercises over him; that he is, in consequence, not his own, but God's; bought with no less a price than the blood of his Son Jesus Christ. It includes, secondly, a conviction that even in his most trying dispensation he has none other end in view than the Christian's complete happiness; the entire emancipation of his soul from the slavery of corrupt nature, the world, the flesh, and the devil. And thirdly, in all cases, but especially in such where he is at a loss to understand God's design in this or that dispensation-in such cases it is the province as well as the improvement of this heaven-implanted principle of a divine faith, implicitly to submit and reconcile itself thereto to give up ourselves and our affairs to that safe Guide whom the winds and the sea obey, who has all the resources of the universe at his command, and who will explain to us so much of

our course as shall be consistent with the exercise of our faith and patience.

Do I then address but one such individual, one over whom God at present hangs the dark mantle of his Providence, concealing his secret end and purpose from his view in thick clouds and darkness-does it require a greater stretch of faith, a higher measure of patience than you seem to yourself to possess, in order that you may be able to bear up your head above the waters?-Bear up notwithstanding. Go on, though it be in darkness respecting his Providence. One thing is clear, namely, that as you have Scriptural grounds for believing that God loves you, because he thus chastens you, so also that you love God, if you keep his commandments. If the prayer of your heart be that he would make your ways so direct that you might keep his statutes, you cannot go wrong. Be assured that nothing befalls you that has the slightest reference to your peace here and happiness hereafter, but God is the doer of it. The very hairs of your head are all numbered.

But still I hear you say, you are unable in your affliction, to discern what proceeds from God and what arises from man, or is the effect of second causes, merely human agency, and therefore dismally conclude that you are under the