from repining under them, and give them dignity by association with Christ. Trifling though we know them to be, yet are they too much for our cheerful endurance, until we have learned to welcome them as the faint shadowings forth of that which He bore.

In days of old it was a part of Christian piety to make pilgrimages to the land where our Lord lived and died. As the traveller walked the streets of Jerusalem, and gazed on the scenes of his Redeemer's agony, the sense of that agony became so vivid, that he returned—or thought he should return to his home with feelings of devotional gratitude which could never again die away. It may have been an error, a delusive hope. Satan, as we know, again exercised his dominion over too many of those who had knelt by the Holy Sepulchre, ånd in truest earnestness vowed themselves to the service of Satan's conqueror. But it was, at least, the error of a loving heart; and who shall say that the offering of that heart was not accepted? And life-the most humble, the most commonplaceis it not also a pilgrimage? The allegory has been brought before us so often, that we turn from it almost with weariness. Yet there is one way in which we may make it very real. We are indeed treading in our Saviour's footsteps. Our life has outward features resembling His, and through them we may recall the image of His earthly existence, even as though we trod the olive-garden of Gethsemane, or knelt in awe and thankfulness on Calvary. What we cannot see, we may teach our

selves to feel; and when we receive a pang of anguish with the remembrance that pain was Christ's portion, and that in bearing it we are like Him and brought nearer to Him, we shall scarcely wish it to be removed from us.

Yes that is the real blessing of all pain, be it great or little. Until we have endured it, there is still, as it were, a wall which shuts us out from full sympathy with our Redeemer. He can feel for us, but we cannot feel for Him. He stands apart from us. We look upon His suffering with awe; but we have nothing of our own by which, even in an infinitely remote degree, to measure it. And the words, “being in an agony," are read by us with cold hearts and voices which neither falter nor tremble; and we turn away to murmur at the least touch of discomfort, the faintest shadow of pain, and call our petty griefs misery, and the passing jarring of our nerves agony.

Humbly but earnestly, indeed, may we hope that God, as He shall see fit, may teach us what that word really means;- that He may teach us according to our need, slowly, gently;-leading us on, step by step;-sending His angel to strengthen us when we shrink at the prospect before us ;-supporting us up the long ascent before we reach what, if necessary, must be the place of our crucifixion; yet still teaching us,-not sparing us,— not allowing us to fall short of any degree of faith, or love, or gratitude to which we may attain through the tribulation either of soul or body.

If a place in heaven farthest from our Redeemer could be ours without pain, would we accept it, if one-close by His side, immediately in His loving Presence-were offered at the price of agony?

The suggestion is but imaginary. It is not the amount of pain endured, but the spirit in which it is received, which brings us nearer to, or sends us farther from our Lord. Yet it is no imagination that through suffering the spirit is perfected in the likeness of Christ.

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"He, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared; though He were a son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." And still the most favoured amongst His disciples are those who are permitted here to share the cup of which He Himself drank; and who hereafter-brightest and most glorious in the company of His redeemedshall, through Eternity, "rejoice with exceeding joy."

May He help us all so to accept the share of pain, of whatever kind, now by God's mercy given us, that we may be prepared for that further portion which He shall see needful to bring us nearer and nearer to Himself!

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EXERTION IN SORROW,

ST. LUKE, Xxii. 45, 46.

"And when He rose up from prayer, and was come to His disciples, He found them sleeping for sorrow, and said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation."

SLEEPING for sorrow! At the first moment, that strikes us as strange. The common idea is that grief is sleepless; and it may be with some persons, but it is not so with all. When danger is vaguely anticipated, but not actually present, or when the first anguish of a great suffering is past, there is a physical drowsiness which sometimes seems to paralyse all the powers of the mind. But even if this were not so, it is unquestionably true that grief has a deadening effect on the mental, and even the moral faculties; and in this consists its danger. It is a great mistake to suppose, as so many do, that affliction rouses us necessarily to a sense of duty; that persons are purified by suffering as mechanically as gold is purified in the fire. If the process of purification is to take place, the metal cast into the furnace must be really gold; for if base metal should be placed under the same ordeal it will

melt; and in like manner it is only that character, or that portion of the character, which is really sterling and pure, that will come forth purified by the furnace of affliction; all that is base and selfish will be overwhelmed by the fierceness of the trial. There is indeed no doubt that many persons exhibit traits of goodness in seasons of adversity which, according to our human calculation, would never have been shown in prosperity. But this is not necessarily the result of the mechanical working of trial. We know very little of the inmost lives even of those who are nearest and dearest to us; still less can we judge of those of our ordinary friends and acquaintances. We call persons frivolous and worldly, because we see them mixing in gay society, and surrounded by the allurements of wealth; but we know nothing of the hidden longing for better things,-the struggles after holiness in the midst of difficulties-the sincerity of heart which makes the conscience tender and uneasy; and renders the life of gaiety a life of selfdenial. When such dispositions shine forth brightly in the hour of adversity, we say that it is affliction which, through God's mercy, has changed them; but it is not so. God's mercy has indeed removed the stumbling-block from their paths, but the disposition is what it was before; and when cast into the furnace the gold is purified and the dross cleared away.

It is especially necessary for us to remember this, because we are apt to indulge an unreal ro