MEDITATION XXXII.

"For if ye suffer with him, ye shall also rise with him."

ARE we willing to die to be with Christ? "Holiness of life and willingness to die are inseparable dispositions." It hath been said, the love of this life and another cause an incessant conflict in the imperfect soul. Let not such persons say they wish to live in order to repair the past; if they examine their hearts, they will find they cling to life because they are not sufficiently virtuous to desire the purity of heaven. If we only feared the judgments of God upon our entrance into eternity, this fear would be calm and holy.

The perfection of our love to God consists in our entire confidence in him. If we loved him as our Father, should we fear him as our judge? Should we fly from his presence, should we tremble thus when sickness warns us of the approach to death?

But there is a secret infidelity at the

bottom of our hearts that stifles these sentiments. We weep at the death of those we love, and we tremble at our own, as they who have no hope. Judging from our anxiety about this life, who would believe that we anticipated a happy futurity? How can they to whom religion has opened the path to another life, they whose hope is full of immortality, how can they reconcile such substantial and glorious hopes with the vain enjoyments which fill our hearts in this world? Our piety is sadly imperfect if we cannot conquer the fear of death.

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MEDITATION XXXIII.

"Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright."

How enviable is the portion and experience of Christians. The world, indeed, knoweth them not. They can only see their outward condition; and because this is often poor and afflicted, they are ready to judge of them as poor and miserable. But how differently would they think, could they see their inward joy and composure! If they could see how they rise above those changes which ruffle and terrify others; if they could see how, while the men of the earth are disquieted and devoured by the sorrows of earth, they have, even in this vale of tears, an asylum where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest, and the fear of God, which passes all understanding, keeps their hearts and minds, through Christ Jesus.

But alas! have we not drawn a picture of what Christians ought to be, rather than what they are? It is lamentable, that they

do not more fully live up to their privileges and improve their resources. Hence that care which they are commanded to resign, and which their heavenly Father is more than willing to take upon himself, they retain and even cherish, to the destruction of their comfort; and instead of their dwelling at ease, and being in quiet from the fear of evil, they are ingenious at self-vexation, and suffer in imagination more than reality!

Lord humble us, and forgive, and teach us to profit, and lead us in the way we should choose.

MEDITATION XXXIV.

"Consider the lilies."

"CONSIDER the lilies; " they are objects of providential care. This was the peculiar aim of our Saviour in the admonition. He would free the minds of his disciples from all undue solicitude respecting their temporal subsistence. Therefore, says he, "take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?" He then refers, in his own inimitable manner, to each of the necessaries of life, food and clothing. "Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?" How simple and convincing the inference! God does not love the birds and flowers as he loves us. He has not put his spirit within them. They are not to endure forever. Will he take