shade of calmness over the most sad hours of my life? Am I convinced that the difficult and painful path in which he leads me is the best for my eternal welfare? and that all things "*work together for good to them that love God?" If you have even an anxious desire to answer these questions satisfactorily, you may say to yourself, "Jesus loves me, and I rejoice in his love."

But beware! if you seek your happiness from the pleasures of this world, you can never enjoy the sweet privileges of the family at Bethany. "+Ye ask and rereceive not, because ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your lust. Ye adulterers and adulteresses know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world

is the enemy of God." "If any man love the world

the love of the Father is not in him." You all wish that it might be said that Jesus loved you, though your affections cling to the world that crucified him; the thought of Jesus is the last that presents itself to your mind-his name is neither in your heart nor on your lips, nor in your dwellings. Would you thus treat a human being for whom you had the least regard? First deny yourselves-renounce the vanities that captivate you, and then you may return to the love of God, and taste the happiness of being loved by Christ, with the family of Bethany. If you really enjoy this love all is right-eternally right—even were

Rom. viii. 28. † James iv. 3, 4. ‡ 1 John ii. 15.

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you oppressed by worldly cares. Without that love all is wrong-eternally wrong-were you laden with all that man in his folly calls happiness. "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus." This expression of St. John must banish from our minds all doubts, mistrust, and murmurs against the mysterious conduct of Jesus, "who abode still two days in the place where he was," after having heard that Lazarus was ill. Why this delay? Why did not Jesus, according to his usual custom, hasten to the relief of a beloved and afflicted family? Why does he not say one word in his omnipotence, and Lazarus would be well? What! did Jesus love Lazarus, and did he leave him languishing in illness? His disorder made fearful progress he felt the sources of life dried up in his bosom-his sisters bathed in tears, watched his glazed eye, dimmed by the approach of death. All present wept bitterly at the prospect of this sad separation; yet Jesus, their heavenly friend, ever alive to human sorrows, is still absent. Two whole days passed, Lazarus died, and Jesus was not there. Can it be then true that he loves Martha and her sister, and Lazarus?

Thus man reasons; he cannot understand the ways of the Eternal: he only sees sorrow where sorrow is, and pain where pain is. He values his deliverance from them according to the promptitude with which it is effected; but Jesus, who in all things seeks the

you

glory of God, and the salvation of man, does not spare his Disciples this timid dread of suffering. He desires that they should learn to love his will more than their own well-being; and recognise his love as clearly when suffering under his most severe dispensations, as when he is rejoicing at being delivered from them. Let me appeal to your experience; have your trials taught you this great truth? When you were exposed to the fiery ordeal of affliction, what was the first prayer that escaped from your heart? What did feel when the Lord did not grant your prayer? When he permitted your anguish to increase? When he sent you long nights of painful wakefulness, or called you to the bed side of a suffering and beloved friend? Tell us, that we may profit by your experience, did you not think that the Lord turned a deaf ear to your supplications? Did you never doubt the efficacy of prayer? Did not the promises of God appear to you to be without power? Have you not at last been forced to confess that the reason of all this was, that you had not humbled yourself properly under the hand of God? That you had not bowed submissively to his will? That you merely sought a riddance from the troubles that assailed you, and after crying, "* O! my father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me❞— you had not courage to add, "nevertheless, not as I will but as thou wilt."

Matt. xxvi. 39.

"*O! fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken!" When will you learn that the ways of the Almighty are not your ways, neither his thoughts are your thoughts? When will you be taught by his grace to govern the impetuous emotions of a wayward spirit-to silence the insinuations of an incredulous heart, and subdue your perverse will. Are we always to be controlled by the interest of the moment without looking above to those plans which a merciful God has laid down for us? "Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee." When the nature of a plant is to take deep root, grow large, and bring forth fruits to perfection, even winds and storms contribute to its growth: but the plant of a day flourishes by gentle means it blossoms with the dawn-displays for a short time its delicate freshness-and budding beauty, ornaments a bright spring morning, perfuming it with delicious fragrancebut, alas! the first gleam of sun destroys its freshness, the first breath of wind fades its beauty, it withers, drops its leaves-" and the place is not known where it was." But the tree that in time will enrich him who planted it, rises slowly and with difficulty from the ground, which it will one day shelter with its branches-it requires years to strike its deep roots, and spread its luxuriant shade-storms seem to harden it-it rises to a magnificent height, and gratifies the hopes of the traveller, who seeks repose

* Luke xxiv, 25. ↑ Job xii. 8. Nahum iii. 17.

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under its foliage, and refreshment from its fruits. It is the same in works of grace as of nature. must be prepared by warfare and trials, "to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life-to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple." It is a sort of education which God gave those children, whom he set apart as a light and an instruction to future ages-he made them pass through the dark paths of adversity-he placed them in a crucible that their faith might be purified from the dross of pride and sin. Abraham, the father of the faithful, was led from trial to trial, from strife to strife-he travelled an unknown road, as strange to him as the mountain of Moriah, where he was ordered to sacrifice the dearest object of his love: he is to hope against all semblance of hope. Again, it sometimes appears as if the Lord smoothed the paths of those who were less favored by his love. A Centurion, of Capernaum, who might have known nothing of a God whom the Heathens rejected, entreated Jesus to cure a favorite servant : he answered, "I will come and heal him, and the servant was healed in the self-same hour." Two blind men, sitting by the way side, heard Jesus passing by, all Israel was resounding with his good deeds, they cried to him vehemently for mercy-he stood still, spake one word, the blind received their sight. A woman of Canaan, a heroine of faith, whose daughter was at the point of death,

Psalm xxvii. 4. St. Matt. viii. 7, 13.