liveth. I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" "It is good for me that I have been afflicted." This is the last consoling truth of the Gospel to which I direct the afflicted family. This dissipates many of the so-called "mysteries of Providence," and presents afflictions as "blessings in disguise." They are no longer unmingled evils. This is not only the doctrine of the Scriptures, it is the lesson of experience and observation. It is taught by the pen of essayist and poet. One has said, "it is better to go to a funeral than a festival" a sentiment derived from the proverb of Solomon, "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting." Even the heathen Demetrius said that "nothing could be more unhappy than the man who had never known affliction." Goldsmith gave the sentiment a place in the following stanza: "Aromatic plants bestow No spicy fragrance while they grow; Prosperity is seldom, if ever, turned to such valuableuses as affliction. It is not in the full tide of prosperity that the kindliest graces of the heart are developed. The strongest bond of sympathy is created between co-heirs in affliction. On such a soil as adversity prepares, the benevolent emotions thrive best. Two hearts similarly afflicted have strong affinities. They sustain a relation to each other peculiarly tender. They maintain an intercourse peculiarly cherished. All their feelings are peculiarly fraternal. The widow clasps the hand of widow with singular devotion. The orphan meets a fellow orphan with such gushing sympathies as strangers to the sorrow cannot exhibit. The bereaved parent condoles with his afflicted neighbor in the loss of his children as others cannot. Almost with magic charms this discipline of affliction brings hearts together. Nothing so effectually removes discordant elements from the household. Affection often glows with new and vigorous life over the corpse of a parent or child, brother or sister. By strong ligaments of sympathy it may sometimes unite the members of a family otherwise alienated and unhappy. Here, too, is often ensured a thrifty growth in grace. The dross of human corruption is purged from the heart, while Christ, as the "refiner and purifier of silver" sits to superintend the process. However severe the ordeal of grief to which a person is subjected, if that alone will win the wanderer from the paths of worldliness, and cause him "to run with patience the race that is set before him," it must be accounted a "blessing in disguise." Indeed, did we know that a backslider might be aroused from his moral stupor, and made a burning and shining light by the death of some member of his family, and by that alone, with an ardent faith and an approving conscience we could supplicate God to send the necessary bereavement. We read of Manasseh, “when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers." The Psalmist declared, "before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept thy word." And the great Apostle, in his letter to the Hebrews, says, "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." When afflictions thus " carry us back to God, and purge the heart and life from sin, leaving both more pure, heavenly and humble than they found them; or when, better still, a longcontinued and most bereaving trial leads christiantodo what it is said the pearl-oyster does, i. e., secrete from itself a pre cious substance to cover the irritating grain of sand or sharp bit of metal that has got within its shell, thus turning it into a gem, how blessed the effect, and who would not be almost willing to bear the trial for the sake of the resulting pearl." Often affliction saves the soul. "We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Examples in illustration of this truth accumulate on every hand. We cite but one. Years ago, upon a promontory jutting out into the waters of the Atlantic, in a desolate locality and upon a rocky shore, stood an humble cottage apart from human habitations. When the storm-winds howled along that dangerous sca and the night grew dark with tempest, a friendly light was seen through the lonely watches beaming from the window of that humble dwelling. Now and then it would reveal a form passing and repassing behind it with quick and anxious pace. All through the stormy night the taper was kept brightly burning to cheer and warn the mariner. The sailors called it the "Lighthouse." There lived a widow, once godless, but now Christ-like. She had seen from her lonely habitation the vessel in which her husband sailed, returning from a long voyage, dashed upon the rocks by a pitiless gale. Then she saw her husband, within sight of his own home, his heart beating high to cross the threshold, swallowed in the boiling sea. She was almost near enough to hear his voice mingle with the roar of the warring elements, yet powerless to aid. Heart-rending affliction! But it brought her to Christ. She lived to save many mariners cast upon those shores in boisterous nights. With her humble fare she fed them, with her cheerful fire she warmed them, from her loved Bible she instructed them, and with the voice of prayer she daily interceded for them. The Eastern shepherd, folding his flock at night, takes up the new-born lamb in his arms and bears it away to the fold, sure that the careful mother will closely follow. So Christ has won many a procrastinating parent by first taking the child to His bosom in glory. The line of Parmel has many affecting illustrations: "Then God to save the father took the son." 66 How beautiful are some of the Scriptural allusions upon this subject! They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing bringing his sheaves with him. The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." All Here we may profitably contrast some of the proffered consolations of worldly philosophy with these delightful supports of the Gospel. The first to which the reader's attention may be directed is expressed by the phrase "common lot." The idea more fully expressed stands thus ;— this is the common lot of men; they are born to trouble; it comes in every form; others mourn and so must we. this may be very true, and harmonize with Scripture, observation, and experience, but this alone will not administer comfort. Will it console the weeping mother, going with her heart oppressed with sorrow to lay her beautiful babe in the grave, to be told that other parents are called to a like affliction? Will it dry the tears of the afflicted wife, following the remains of her companion to the tomb, to hear the intelligence that thousands experience a similar bereavement? Not at all. Here is no recognition of the Divine hand. A heathen would say the same. A deist believes it with all his heart. And were no God upon the throne, as much might be said with equal truth. If consolation can be found in such counsel as this, then we need no religious truth, no Word of God, no God Himself. We may live and die like the heathen, consoled by the fact, suited to awaken commiseration rather than delight, that multitudes are crushed by similar sorrows. "We must be resigned to our fate." This counsel be longs to the same category as the above. There is no acknowledgement of the Divine government. It means, if it means any thing, that we should meet our earthly lot, whatever it may be, as fixed and unalterable, without reference to its meaning or its cause. We cannot help ourselves, so we must summon our natural fortitude and meet the shock heroically, as the warrior faces the mouth of a loaded cannon. Such counsel appeals to those elements of character that make a brave soldier on the battle-field, but not a christian at the Cross. There is less religion in it than there was in the old doctrine of the Fates, as taught by the ancient Mythology. The Fates were reported to be "three sisters, daughters of night, whom Jupiter permitted to decide the fortune, and especially the duration of mortal life. One of them attached the thread, the second spun it, and the third cut it off when the end of life arrived." There is more of a religious character here than in the counsel quoted above, because it recognizes an ever-watchful and overruling agency in human experience. It is more consistent with the relations of a dependant being, to acknowledge even an infernal agency in human destiny, than no agency at all. I would as lief die amid the darkness of this old, mystic doctrine of Greece and Rome, as amid the no lesser darkness that accompanies such miserable counsels of worldly philosophy. "We all must die." The author once heard this sentence uttered in an afflicted family, over the very remains of a deceased member, amid the sighs and sobbings of agonized hearts; and it was uttered in a tone which indicated that |