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CHAPTER II.

SPECIAL MOTIVES TO RESIGNATION UNDER

BEREAVEMENT.

EVERY loss we sustain is greatly aggravated, when the feelings are so excited as to break forth in ebullitions of violence, or settle into habitual fretfulness. Jonah was exceedingly glad of the gourd which adorned his bower, and refreshed him with its shade; but, like most creature-comforts, it was of short continuance. For "God

MOTIVES TO RESIGNATION.

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prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd, that it withered." How grieved and disappointed, how desolate and desponding, was now the prophet! What bursts of impatience issued from his lips! What tempests of resentment and anxiety darkened and shook his soul! "And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death." We have here a most affecting view of human weakness and depravity. A man of understanding, endowed with various gifts, and employed in a holy calling, centring all his fond hopes and desires in a little plant. The gourd perishes in a night, and the Nay, he

prophet is inconsolable.

vents his petulance against God, and determines to keep alive the indignant feelings which, like smouldering secret fires, are consuming his own soul. Nineveh might have perished unregretted had his favourite flower remained safe, but now he has nothing left worth a thought, and only wishes to die. This instance shows that good men themselves, and those who are engaged in high and holy offices, are liable to be elated with pride, and carried away by the vehement gusts of passion. And when any external privation robs us of equanimity, the latter involves a loss which cannot be accurately calculated. The precept addressed by Christ to his disciples, on the approach of the days of tribulation which he had foretold, is still of

the highest value in every sharp trial, "In your patience possess ye your souls." A calm, patient spirit under all our losses and all our troubles, is the spirit which best befits and adorns the Christian. It was a father mourning the death of his son who said,

"When I can trust my all with God,

In trial's fearful hour;

Bow all resigned beneath his rod,
And bless his sparing power;
A joy springs up amid distress,
A fountain in the wilderness.

"O blessed be the hand that gave,
Still blessed when it takes:
Blessed be he who smites to save,

Who heals the heart he breaks :
Perfect and true are all his ways,

Whom heaven adores and death obeys."

Let me now entreat you who are suffering by the stroke of bereavement, to weigh the various motives which

The at

you have to resignation. tributes and perfections of God, exerted and displayed in the movements of his providence, should calm the troubled thoughts of the mind, and soothe the irritated feelings of the heart. Painful and distressing events do not come, as some foolishly imagine, from the loosely shaken urn of chance, or the iron hand of blind, irrevocable fate. The mighty Maker of the world is its wise, just, merciful, and unchangeable Governor. There is nothing above, beneath, beyond his knowledge and control. "He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand, or," without awful presumption, "say unto him, What doest thou?"

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