are deprived of those they love? Perhaps they lose only a perpetual delirium; they lose their forgetfulness of God and of themselves, in which they were plunged; or rather they gain by this trial the felicity of detachment from the world; the same stroke that saves the person who dies, prepares others, by suffering, to labor for their own salvation. Is it not then true, that God is good, that he is tender and compassionate towards our real sorrows, even when he strikes us to the heart, and we are tempted to complain of his severity?

Very soon they who are separated will be reunited, and there will appear no trace of the separation. They, who are about to set out upon a journey, ought not to feel themselves far distant from those who have gone to the same country, a few days before. Life is like a torrent; the past is but a dream; the present, while we are thinking of it, escapes us, and is precipitated in the same abyss that has swallowed up the past; the future will not be of a different nature, it will pass as rapidly. A few moments, and a few more, and all will be ended; what has ap

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peared long and tedious, will seem short when is is finished.

The true way to bear trials is to yield ourselves up to God. We suffer, indeed, but He wills this suffering, that it may purify us and render us worthy of Him. The world forgets us, slights us, is ungrateful to us, places us in the rank of those who have passed away; and is it astonishing the world should be unjust, treacherous, and deceitful? And yet it is the same world we have not been ashamed to love so dearly; and that perhaps we still love; and this is the source of our sorrow.

PRAYER.

ALMIGHTY GOD, who alone canst see the whole extent of our misery, canst alone cure it. Give us we implore thee, the faith, the hope, the love, the Christian courage we need. Enable us even to raise our eyes to thee, the all-powerful, who will give to thy children only what is for their everlasting good; and to Jesus Christ, thy Son, who is our example in suffering. Raise our hearts,

O our Father; make them like his, that they may be self-denying, and may fear only thy displeasure and eternal sorrow. O Lord, thou seest the weakness and desolation of the creature of thy hands. It has no resourse in itself; it wants everything, and seeks in thee with confidence, the good it cannot find elsewhere.

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MEDITATION LIX.

"Lead us not into temptation. '

Be careful to avoid all exposure to temptation which we are at liberty to avoid. Still it does not always depend upon ourselves, whether we shall escape occasions of sin. Those that belong to the situation in life, in which Providence has placed us, are not under our control. In the moment of temptation we should throw ourselves upon the protection of heaven, as a child, when in danger, flies to the arms of a parent.

The habitual conviction of the presence of God, is the sovereign remedy; it supports, it consoles, it calms us. We must not be surprised that we are tempted. We are placed here to be proved by temptations. Everything is temptation to us. Trials irritate our pride, and prosperity flatters us; our life is a continual warfare, but Jesus Christ combats with us. We must let temptations, like a tempest, beat upon our heads, and still move on; like a traveller, who, surprised

on the way by a storm, wraps his cloak about him, and goes on his journey in spite of the opposing elements.

The work of God is a great work, because it must be done without reserve. His spirit enters the secret foldings of the heart, and even the most upright affections must be regulated by his will; but it is not constraint and contention that advances us in our Christian course. On the contrary, it is yielding our wills without restriction and without choice, to tread cheerfully every day in the path in which Providence leads us, to seek nothing, to be discouraged by nothing, to see our duty in the present moment, to trust all else, without reserve, to the will and power of God. Let us pray to our heavenly Father that our wills may be swallowed up in his.

PRAYER.

ALMIGHTY FATHER, when we are tempted to do what our consciences condemn, may we pause as on the brink of a precipice, and see to it that we are not despoiled of the power and will to serve thee. We would