The man of business.

The sick child.

interests will suffer,-how much will be neglected, while she lies helpless in her bed. But oh, thou impatient mother, remember, that He who brings sickness, is to be considered as bringing every evil, which necessarily follows in its train. If you repine, then, or murmur at any of the inevitable consequences of your removal from the scene of your labors, you are in heart struggling against God. So with the man of business. No matter what inconvenience, or what losses come upon him, in consequence of sickness. He ought not to walk his room with anxious impatience, nor look forth from his window sighing to be free again. He ought to feel that when God shuts him up from his daily duties, that he takes upon himself the responsibility of it. Whatever losses he suffers come from him. It is his duty to be resigned, and to listen patiently to what God has to say to him, in his silent and solitary chamber.

Perhaps the very object, for which the sickness was sent, is to teach you resignation to the divine will. Perhaps God has seen in your conduct, a dissatisfied and repining spirit, awakened by a thousand little circumstances, which are beyond your control, and which you therefore ought to consider as ordered by Providence. Now perhaps God has brought sickness upon you, for the sake of removing this fault. How admirably is it calculated to produce this effect. How irresistibly must a man feel that a very strong hand is over him, when he is taken from his sphere, and laid down upon his bed,-all his plans suspended, or destroyed, and no human power capable of restoring him to activity again. Oh, one would think, if man could learn submission any where, it is here.

The same principles of duty should govern us in witnessing the sickness of a friend; and of all cases, the sickness of a child, is the one against which we are the most likely to struggle. There are thousands of parents professedly Christians, whose lives are imbittered, and whose peace and happiness is destroyed, because they cannot really

Duty of submission.

The responsibility of the decision.

trust their children in the hands of God. Every little sickness alarms them,-every precaution, whether suggested by reason or imagination is taken, and the mind is full of restless, unsubmissive fears, as if they were under the dominion of a tyrant. Now there is a certain degree of ordinary prudence and caution to be observed, and in case of sickness, there is medical skill, which to a certain extent, may modify or change results. But after all, these precautions and this aid will go but a very little way. The invasions of disease, especially in children, are far less dependent on circumstances within our control than is often supposed. The development of hereditary tendencies, the mysterious influences of atmospheric changes, and a thousand combinations of causes and circumstances, not to be controlled, produce them; and when they come, all we have to do is quietly and calmly to pursue the course which seems best adapted to promote restoration. As to the responsibility for the result, we throw ourselves on God; and let him do just as he pleases. 、

Suppose, now, there should be a mother, always uneasy and solicitous about her child, when it was in health, or sitting over it, when in sickness, restless and anxious, trying this remedy and that, without reason and without hope, just because she cannot give him up;―suppose, I say, that God should come to the bedside, and say to her, "Anxious mother, I was taking charge of your child, but since you are so restless and uneasy about it, I will give the case up to you, if you will take it. There is a great question to be decided;-shall that child recover, or die? I was going to decide it in the best way for yourself and him. But since you cannot trust me, you may decide it yourself. Look upon him, then, as he lies there suffering, and then look forward as far as you can into futurity,-see as much as you can of his life here, if you allow him to live; and look forward to eternity,-to his eternity and yours. Get all the light you can, and then tell me whether you are really

The mother and the sick child.

Restless repining.

ready to take the responsibility of deciding the question; whether he shall five or die. Since you are not willing to allow me to decide it, I will leave you to decide it yourself."

What would be the feelings of a mother, if God should thus withdraw from the sick bed of her child, and leave the responsibility of the case in her hands alone. Who would dare to exercise the power, if the power were given, or say to a dying child, "you shall live, and on me shall be the responsibility." Then let us all leave God to decide. Let us be wise, and prudent, and faithful, in all our duties, but never, for a moment, indulge in an anxious thought;—it is rebellion. Let us rather throw ourselves on God. Let us say to him, that we do not know what is best, either for us, or our children, and ask him to do with us just as he pleases. Then we shall be at peace at all times,-when disease makes its first attack,—when the critical hours approach, by which the question of life or death is to be decided, and even when the last night of the little patient's suffering has come, and we see the vital powers gradually sinking, in their fearful struggle with death.

vital powers there.

Besides, were it not so much pleasanter and happier for us to submit cheerfully to God, it would be the height of folly to do otherwise. Suppose that God has decided that it is best for your child to die,—and has come into your family, and laid it upon its bed, and has admitted a fatal disease into its system, which is busy at its sad work upon the Can you change his Can you change his purpose, do you think, by restlessness and repining and rebellious anxiety about it? No. That is the very best thing you can do to accelerate the blow. Perhaps your want of submission to God, is the reason why it is sent, and by indulging such a feeling, you only demonstrate more fully the necessity of the moral remedy you fear. It is a moral remedy, and God will never be deterred from administering a medicine on account of the impatience or resistance of the one who needs it. No. The wisest and best thing we can do, when

Summary of the chapter.

Common idea of giving to the poor.

we see God approaching us with a bitter cup, is calmly and submissively to take it from his hands, and drink it up. If he perceives this feeling, he will administer the draught with so much tender kindness that it will lose half its power.

The sum and substance then, of our directions for securing personal happiness in this world, is this: Make your peace thoroughly with God, regulate all your worldly affairs, and attend to them industriously and on system,have no quarrels with men, and submit cheerfully to all the dealings of God. Let any man who is not happy, take hold of his character and habits, and reform them on these principles. Let him do the work thoroughly and honestly, and if then his peace and happiness do not return, it must be that he stands in need of medical, not moral, treatment, and I can do no more for him, but to commend him to the care of his physician.

CHAPTER IV.

THE POOR.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish."

THERE are a great many persons in the world, whose only idea of doing good, seems to be the act of giving money, or something which money will purchase, to the poor. Pecuniary charity, as a relief for physical suffering, they appear to consider the great work of Christian benevolence. Whereas it is but a very, very small department; and though it is a department which must on no account be neglected, still it is probably one, in which the labors of the philanthropist are most discouraging; and least effectual in producing any ultimate, useful result.

The reason of this will be obvious, upon a little reflec tion, on the nature and causes of poverty. In America,

An example.

and probably in most parts of England, poverty, by which I mean, the absolute want of the necessaries of life, arises in a vast majority of cases, from idleness, mismanagement, or from vice. It is the punishment which Providence has assigned to each of these offences against his laws, and, as in all other cases, you cannot very easily abate the punishment, without increasing the sin. Good character, industry, and prudence, will, in almost any country, under almost any government, and in almost any condition, find a comfortable subsistence. Of course, there are exceptions; exceptions on a great scale, produced by great national calamities, and on a smaller scale, by individual sickness or suffering. There are men, undoubtedly, the utmost efforts of whose feeble powers, will not procure the means of subsistence;—and thousands may be reduced to beggary by a pestilence, or a prevailing famine, or turned out of employment by a change in the arrangements of business, or reduced to the extreme of hunger and des pair in a besieged city. It is not, however, my province here to speak of these. They are beyond the limits of ordinary private Christian charity. They are great emergencies which must be met, each by its own appropriate remedy, which the statesman must devise; or they are, as is more frequently the case, judgments from Heaven, which admit of no remedy, perhaps even no sensible alleviation from the hand of man, but will do their awful work to the full.

These instances are, however, rare; all the ordinary cases of suffering from poverty, are produced from one of the three causes above enumerated,-idleness, mismanagement, or vice; and it is almost impossible to alleviate the consequences without aggravating the cause.

A

For example, let us look at a very common case. woman, apparently in the most wretched condition which imagination can conceive, comes up to your door, begging for some money to buy food. She carries a child in he