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presence where is fullness of joys, to that right hand, where are pleasures for evermore!"

There is one further thought which I must not fail to submit to you, on this subject, before I leave it. The greatness of our sufferings, points to a correspondent greatness in the end to be gained. When I see what men are suffering around me, I cannot help feeling that it was meant not only, that they should be far better than they are, but far better than they often think of being. The end must rise higher and brighter before us, before we can look through this dark cloud of human calamity. The struggle, the wounds, the carnage and desolation of a battle, would overwhelm me with horror, if it were not fought for freedom, for the fire-side, to protect infancy from ruthless butchery, and the purity of our homes from brutal wrong. So is the battle of this life, a bewildering maze of misery and despair, till we see the high prize that is set before it. You would not send your son to travel through a barren

and desolate wilderness, or to make a long and tedious voyage to an unhealthy clime, but for some great object; say, to make a fortune thereby. And any way, it seems to your parental affection, a strange and almost cruel proceeding. Nor would the merciful Father of life have sent his earthly children to struggle through all the sorrows, the pains and perils of this world, but to attain to the grandeur of a moral fortune, worth all the strife and endurance. No, all this is not ordained in vain, nor in reckless indifference to what we suffer, but for an end, for a high end, for an end higher than we think for. Troubles, disappointments, afflictions, sorrows, press us on every side, that we may rise upward, upward, ever upward. And believe me, in thus rising upward, you shall find the very names that you give to calamity, gradually changing. Misery, strictly speaking and in its full meaning, does not belong to a good mind. Misery shall pass into suffering, and suffering into discipline, and discipline into virtue, and virtue into heaven. So let it pass with you.

Bend now patiently and meekly, in that lowly "worship of sorrow," till in God's time, it become the worship of joy,—of proportionably higher joy, in that world where there shall be no more sorrow, nor pain, nor crying, where all tears shall be wiped from your eyes,-where beamings of heaven in your countenance, shall grow brighter by comparison with all the darkness of earth.

And remember too, that your forerunner unto that blessed life, passed through this same worship of sorrow. A man of sorrows was that Divine Master, and acquainted with grief. And what were the instruments, the means, the ministers of that very victory, that last victory? The rage of men, and the fierceness of torture; arraignment before enemies, — mocking, smiting, scourging; the thorny crown, the bitter cross, the barred tomb! With these he fought, through these he conquered, and from these he rose to heaven. And, believe me, in something must every disciple be like the Master. Clothed in some vesture of

pain, of sorrow or of affliction, must he fight the great battle, and win the great victory. When I stand in the presence of that high example, I cannot listen to poor, unmanly, unchristian complainings. I would not have its disciples account too much of their griefs. Rather would I say, courage! ye that bear the great, the sublime lot of sorrow! It is not forever that ye suffer. It is not for naught, that ye suffer. It is not without end, that ye suffer. God wills it. He spared not his own Son from it. God wills it. It is the ordinance of his wisdom for us. Nay, it is the ordinance of Infinite love, to procure for us an infinite glory and

beatitude.

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GOD, OUR HELP.

ALL teaching and all experience persuade us that our true help in trial must come from God.

And how is it to come from God?

1. It comes through faith. The heart which believes in God, and believes in Christ, ceases to be troubled; for it does not look at the event alone, but at the hidden purposes which it is to answer in the counsels of Providence, and the revelations concerning these purposes which have been brought by Jesus Christ. Thus the mind is occupied by something extrinsic to the immediate cause of mourning, and lifted up to the great First Cause. In contemplating that great First Cause, it is impossible to discern any thing but infinite wisdom and essential benignity. Whatever is done, is with the kindest design, and for the most desirable end. It is impossible there should

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