seed taking deep root downwards, and bringing forth much fruit upwards. Yea, it may lie dormant many years, and yet be revived, and "accomplish that which the Lord pleased, and prosper in the thing whereto he sent it."

I began this paper almost playfully; I close it very sorrowfully; for I close it under the solemn impression of the awfulness of God's written declaration: "For every idle word that men speak, shall they give account at the day of judgment." "We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ." And what will be the fearful account of that day, as it regards idle words alone, a created mind cannot calculate, while a Christian mind shudders at the awful sum of sin that rises up before it in dread and dark perspective!

May none of us abandon the contemplation of the subject, until the petition, "God be merciful to me a sinner," bursts, as it well may, in shame, and sorrow, and real repentance from our innermost hearts, aud until there be joined with this petition a prayer for grace, to use the gift of speech for the future more to the glory of the gracious Giver!

LETTER XIII.

PATIENCE IN SICKNESS.

IN our first entrance on life, we are apt to think that life is nothing but a succession of agreeable employments, and pleasant recreations. Youth is the bright spring-time of existence; the wild, fresh, dewy morning; and in the glowing rapture of ' vernal delight,' the untold gladness of the sweet hour of prime,' we picture to ourselves a kind of butterfly enjoyment amid sunshine and flowers. The evil days seem far away, and we whisper to our hearts, that if they exist, they exist not for us. Hope, standing on tip-toe, looks exultingly forward, and she holds the fairy wand of Fancy, while she sings her syren song. A very few years-perhaps a very few months, pass over our heads, and we awake to the truth, that life has its black days as

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well as its white days, and that very many are of the mingled and intermediate hue. Among the many means by which the Lord is pleased to awake his children from their dreams of fancied happiness below, sickness is one.

The word of God remains in unchanged, unalterable characters to the end of time. "In the world," our blessed Saviour says, "Ye shall have tribulation." The inspired testimony of the Apostles, was, "We must, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God." The great multitude in heaven whom the beloved disciple saw, "which came

arrayed in white robes, were they out of great tribulation."

There are various kinds

of tribulation, but personal suffering is one of the most common and the most severe. You will recal to mind, when holy Job had sustained the loss of his substance, and had been bereaved of his children, and still stood firm to his God, retaining his integrity, that the malignant tempter plotted for another and a fiercer attack. "Skin for skin, yea,

all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face."

I would not unnecessarily darken the hey-day of

life, its brief sun-shiny holyday, with the thoughts.

of coming evil.

"Yet coming events cast their shadows before."

And if those precursor shadows enable us to meet the events themselves with greater calmness, it is well. Saussure, the celebrated traveller, is said to have prepared himself for his perilous mountain journeyings, by walking blind-folded on level ground, and imagining himself among precipices. There is no royal road to the grave; we must tread the path which our fathers have trod before us. The dark and long perspective of disease and death, which rose before the eye of Gray, when contemplating a distant prospect of Eton College, was not the baseless fabric of a vision.'

Believe it then, you will have sickness.

It is

the lot of mankind in general, and it is often peculiarly the lot of woman. When it comes, think it not strange as though some strange thing had happened to you; and imagine not, as we are too apt to imagine, that you are afflicted beyond what any human being ever was before. Whatever your sufferings may be, no trial will happen to you but such as is common to man, and "God is

faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also, make a way for you to escape, that you may be able to bear it."

Sickness is best borne by looking on it as coming from the hand of a heavenly Father, a Father, perfect in wisdom, and perfect in love-" wisdom that cannot err, love that cannot be unkind." "It is

the Lord." "It is well." 66 Thy will be done." "The Lord reigneth." These are short sentences, but, received into the heart under the energy of the Holy Spirit, they work quiet, deep, uncompromising submission, and in submission there is peace. Submission disarms the hand of Omnipotence, and lays the creature low before the Creator, every doubt hushed, and a present God acknowledged. The great work of life is to bend our will into conformity with the will of God," that we may love that which He commands, and desire that which He doth promise," and whatever is instrumental in promoting this great work must be welcomed as a friend, not deprecated as a foe. I do not expect you to pray with Martin Luther," Lord! rebuke and chasten;" but I do trust, that when rebuke and chastening come, you may be enabled with the