ful Church service, and only ask that our requests may be granted "as may be most expedient for us.”

The old Chinese philosopher Lau-tsze said: "A violent wind will not outlast the morning. A pouring Who are they that make And, if heaven and earth

rain will not outlast the day. these but heaven and earth? cannot continue such things long, how much more will this be the case with man?" Indeed, one should never despair:

Come what come may,

Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.*

If things look hopeless, a man may console himself with the reflection that:

I am not now in fortune's power,

He that is down can fall no lower.**

"Hope and fasting," says Jeremy Taylor, "are said to be the two wings of prayer. Fasting is but as the wing of a bird; but hope is like the wing of an angel soaring up to heaven, and bears our prayers to the throne of grace. Without hope it is impossible to pray; but hope makes our prayers reasonable, passionate, and religious; for it relies upon God's promise, or ex

perience, or providence, and story.

Prayer is always in proportion to our hope, zealous and affectionate.”*

No doubt it is not wise to be too sanguine. "Il n'y a guère de personne," says Fénelon, "à qui il n'en coûte cher pour avoir trop espéré."** In business especially, the sanguine man sometimes pays for high hopes by heavy losses. Even so the balance is not all on one side. Many would rather be poor and hopeful that they will be rich, than rich and fearful of being poor. Moreover, if hope often leads to loss, timidity will sometimes do the same. There is a time to be bold and a time to be cautious, the difficulty is to know which is before us. If in doubt it is wisest to do nothing. It is at least easy to do nothing, and by no means easy to undo anything.

"Fortune is often represented as blind, but in reality," says Sir T. Browne, "it is we that are blind, not Fortune; because our eye is too dim to discover the mystery of her effects, we foolishly paint her blind, and hoodwink the providence of the Almighty."*** More* Jeremy Taylor.

**"There is scarcely anyone who has not paid dearly for hoping too much" (De l'éducation des filles).

*** Religio Medici.

On Peace and Happiness.

8

over, if she is blind she is not invisible. Rochefoucauld says: "Il faut gouverner la fortune comme la santé; en jouir quand elle est bonne, prendre patience quand elle est mauvaise, et ne faire jamais de grands remèdes sans un extrême besoin.”* Good fortune is really, however, more difficult to bear than bad. Misfortunes require only one virtue-patience: prosperity will ruin almost anyone, unless he has prudence, caution, temperance, unselfishness, charity, and several other virtues. Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. **

The proper spirit with which to meet misfortune is, as Milton said on the loss of his sight, when he felt almost inclined to despair at his misfortune, and at “the loss of wisdom, at one entrance quite shut out":

Yet, I argue not

Against Heaven's hand or will, or bate a jot

Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward.

Indeed, "whom the Lord loveth He correcteth; even

* "We must regulate our fortune like our health; enjoy it when good, bear it patiently when bad, and reserve desperate remedies for extreme cases."

** Shakespeare.

as a father the son in whom he delighteth."* Even were it not so we should endeavour to

Know how sublime a thing it is

To suffer and be strong.**

And we shall often find that, meeting misfortune in

this spirit,

Out of the nettle, danger, we pluck the flower, safety. The lesson of Job also teaches us that we should

Beware of desperate steps! the darkest day,

Live till to-morrow, will have passed away.***

It is perhaps cold comfort to the individual or individuals directly affected, but many an apparent misfortune has proved a blessing in the long-run. Floods bring fertility; volcanoes have enriched whole districts. The great fire was no unmixed misfortune for London. Even take the destruction of Pompeii. So far as the material city is concerned, preservation would be a more correct description. Goethe truly observes that "many a calamity has happened in the world, but never one that has caused so much entertainment to posterity as this one. I scarcely know of anything that is more interesting." "It may be," he says elsewhere, "that a

man is at times horribly threshed by misfortunes, public and private; but the reckless flail of fate, when it beats the rich sheaves, crushes only the straw; the corn feels nothing of it, and dances merrily on the floor, careless whether its way is to the mill or the furrow.”

The furnace of adversity often purifies a man, and separates the good metal of his nature from the dross by which it was obscured.

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.*

CHAPTER VII.

KINDNESS.

No one gets angry with children, we all make allowances for those who are out of health, and "de mortuis nil nisi bonum" is a proverb the truth of which we all admit. But why should not this merciful and * St. Matthew.