of their care. They must be prepared to meet with occasional instances of fretfulness and irritability. The uneasiness and pain which are suffered by the sick man may often affect and sour his temper, and the mind, perhaps, is enfeebled by the disease of the body, and rendered less able to check and control either the feeling or the expression of peevishness and ill-humour. For such marks of irritation their attendants and friends must make every possible allowance. They should endeavour to bear with them in such manner as an indulgent parent bears with the fretfulness of a froward child. They certainly will do well gently to correct them, and affectionately to admonish the sick sufferer to shew more command of himself, to be more mindful of his obligation to the duties of patience and resignation, the peculiar duties of a sick bed. But if he still gives way to them, they

must attribute them not to the sick man himself, but to the sickness which preys upon him, and leads him to give vent to emotions,—to say and do that,—of which, in a state of health and the full exercise of his reason, he would himself disapprove. They should consider how liable, if in the same state of suffering, they might themselves be to similar expressions of fretfulness and impatience, and should endeayour to meet them with gentleness and kindness, and the manifestation of real sympathy.

To the performance of these, and the like offices of kindness toward the sick, we are called, as I have already observed, by the common feelings of our nature, by the conviction that we are ourselves liable to similar sufferings, and by the precepts and the whole spirit of the Christian religion. And for our encouragement we should remember the gracious declaration

of our Lord in the chapter from which the text is taken: "Verily I say unto you, Forasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

The Prayer.

O MOST gracious God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ hast knit us all together in one body, that we should love one another, and if one member suffers, all the members should suffer with it, give us at all times a compassionate feeling for the sufferings of the sick and afflicted. Make us ready to afford them that assistance which we should wish for ourselves if we were in their situation; and do thou bless our weak endeavours for their good, both in body and soul, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

SERMON IV.

RECOVERY FROM SICKNESS.

PSALM CXviii. 18.

The Lord hath chastened and corrected me, but he hath not given me over unto death.

IT is the direction of the apostle, that

" in every thing" we should "give thanks,' -that we should endeavour to maintain in our hearts a constant feeling of religious gratitude, and should be ready to express such gratitude with our lips. There are perhaps few occasions in our mortal life, which call upon us more powerfully for such feeling and such expression of thankfulness, than the recovery of health after a serious and dangerous sickness.

D

Many of us, my friends,-perhaps most of us,-have experienced in the time past of our life some such cause for thankfulness. Many of us, at some period or other, have been visited by disease, or have met with accidents endangering life, and have by God's providence been restored again to health, and to the renewal of our accustomed strength.

The change from a state of debility, languor, uneasiness, and pain, to a state of health, and vigour, and comparative enjoyment; the return to the active occupations and amusements of life, instead of the wearisome sameness of a sick bed, come home to the feelings of every one, and of themselves inspire a sensation of thankfulness. And the cause for thankfulness is inexpressibly increased, if the sickness found us in a state ill prepared for going hence, and gave us, during its continuance, but little opportunity for