no doubt the saying is true, but we can scarcely trust ourselves with such a task;-there is in us too much self-consciousness;-the eye of the world follows us so searchingly, even in our apparent secresy. We profess to write for ourselves, but the thought of the opinion which may be formed of us still haunts us, and though we seem to be alone, we feel ourselves really surrounded by witnesses. For man, there is but one solitude-the presence of God; and in that presence alone may we dare to look upon ourselves as we have been,-as we are,— and as we may be.

We need not attempt to shut out from ourselves any fact which that sight may bring before us. Pride and truth can never dwell together in any human breast. As we confess our sins before our Redeemer, so let us also acknowledge what we have done to serve Him; and the acknowledgment, when made, as it then must be, in the deepest consciousness of weakness, will but serve to strengthen our faith, to confirm our hope, and to give us a more entire resignation to His Will.

If we have been permitted to do anything for the good of others, or in the work of self-discipline, it has been by the operation of God's grace, acting through the outward circumstances of our lives. Let us then reverently try to trace the progress of that work. Strange, indeed will be the revelations made in the course of such an inquiry. Events which the world would have called most dangerous will be seen to have been the means of our safe

guard. Trial which it might have been thought would surely lead to a fall, will be discovered to have fostered a spirit of strength and constancy. Temper perhaps was our besetting sin, and we were placed in a position where it was most sorely tried; --but the very greatness of the temptation awoke us to the necessity of battling with it, and by the strong Hand of God's Might it was struggled with and subdued. Our vanity perhaps beset us. We had that belonging to us which might naturally call it forth, and we were sent into the world to receive its homage;--but even before the snare beset us, God revealed to us that it was awaiting us, and by prayer and watchfulness we were enabled to guard against its approach; closing our eyes and stopping our ears to the very least whisper of its seductive voice, because we knew that for us there was no safeguard but to crush our enemy at once--that to parley with it would be destruction. Or, again,we may have been naturally anxious, distrustful, careful about the things of this world, and God may have seen fit so to order our lives, that they shall have been one continued course of harassing uncertainty and responsibility; - here also we might have yielded to a slight temptation, but this has been so great that we were compelled to flee to God to save us from it. Such a life could not be borne without trust; and the extremity of our anxiety has taught us to be in a measure unanxious.

These are but a few instances of the way in

which life may be so reviewed as to give us a full, undoubting confidence in the Love which awaits us for the future. Even if we see nothing of what has been described, if we can trace no efforts and no victories, yet at least we have been taught to know our weakness. So far as we are in any degree in earnest,--and it is only an earnest mind which will undertake the inquiry now alluded to--that earnestness is the result of the spiritual education through earthly channels already given, and the pledge of that which is still to come.

For us also, even as for our blessed Saviour, there are, though in a very different sense, things written that "must be accomplished;"-not indeed without or against our will, but through its training and purification! He "who willeth that all men should be saved," has therefore willed our salvation. There is a place in Heaven prepared for us, a crown of glory awaiting us, angels are expecting us, our Redeemer stands ready to welcome us. But there are also, it may be, hours of bitter grief on earth in store for us,--heart-sickening disappointments, bereavements that shall make our homes desolate, anxiety that shall destroy every sense of present enjoyment;-all to be met with and endured. The one life is the necessary, the inevitable preparation for the other.

Who will be so cowardly as to shrink from it, or so unthankful as to repine at it? In years gone by we may have labored without care; now, and in years to come, we may have to toil in doubt and

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dreariness; but it is the same God who prepares our lot, whatever it may be, to the end that all which is destined for us may be accomplished,that we may be fitted for our place in the Kingdom of His Glory.

НАВІТ.

St. Luke, xxii. 39, 40.

"And He came out, and went, as He was wont, to the Mount of Olives; and His disciples also followed Him. And when He was at the place, He said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation."

"He went as He was wont." That expression, like so many others, brings up the image of common life. There are such numberless things which we are "wont" to do,-which we do without thought, but which are leading us on surely, though noiselessly, to the scene of some great trial! It is a fact which forces itself upon us irresistibly as we journey on through life, increasing every day in experience, and learning to read more clearly the coming events which cast their shadows before." In youth we take the day as it appears,—we see the blossom of the present moment, but we never think that hidden below it lies the seed-vessel of the future; and it is only when memory retraces our steps that we marvel at our blindness in not having discovered the beginnings of the events which now are fully developed. But it is very different in middle life. Then, every fact that occurs has an under-meaning, because we feel, that although per