than to be left unchecked in our career. It has been well said, "The sorest word God ever spoke to Israel was, 'Why should ye be stricken any more?"" wayward heart was throwing out its side and rooting them down to earth.

This fibres on every

He had to un

root them from things that are of "earth, earthy," and fasten them on Himself as all in all!

A FIRST EARLY TRIAL!-Had it not its gracious mitigations? At first sight this may appear a strange admission. There may seem no alleviating drop in But such there always are. "Have you your cup.

ever marked," says a writer who knew well herself what the furnace was,have you ever marked His gentleness when bringing a painful message? how He usually calls by name, 'Abraham, Abraham!'' Moses, Moses?""

Yes! I verily believe that there are few afflicted children of God but can echo the expression of the tried Psalmist, "I will sing of mercy and of judgment." (Mercy first, then judgment!) Let each of these mercies be a voice of comfort to you. Have there been kind friends sent to share the bitterness of your sorrow and give you the tribute of their valued sympathy? Ask those who, from peculiar circumstances, may have been denied this boon-who in their hour of trial have been left unbefriended to weep in silence and in solitude their first tears-if there be no mercy in this? Again, your chief blessing may have been

taken away from you; but many precious ties yet remain, and the loss you have sustained knits together the broken links in holier and more sacred bonds than before. Ask those who have carried their all to the grave-who have been left like a solitary tree of the forest, alone-if there be no blessing in having the voice of doubly-endeared survivors to mingle together common sympathy and recount the hallowed memories of the departed? Or, better than all, Is the loss you mourn the eternal gain of the absent one? Oh! ask those who have to muse in dumb agony over the thought of those gone unprepared to meet their God, Is it no mercy (nay, rather is it not the most exalted of consolations,-that which disarms death and bereavement of all its bitterness) that "the loved and lost" are the crowned and glorified? "We may not here below," says St. Cyprian, " put on dark robes of mourning, when they above have put on the white robes of glory." "The birds are fled away, having outgrown our care, to fill a bough on the tree of life, and charm us on to follow after them." "I have had six children, and I bless God for His free grace that they are all with Christ or in Christ, and my mind is now at rest concerning them. My desire was that they should have served Christ on earth, but if God will choose to have them rather serve Him in heaven, I have nothing to murmur at; His will be done." "All our dear rela

Elliot.

tions that died in Christ," in the words of the great Puritan, "are in the highest heavens. While we are fighting, sighing, and sobbing here below, they are with blessed Jesus above, according to His prayer for them, seeing His glory and participating in it."1

A FIRST EARLY TRIAL!-Is there not a specially loud voice in it? You may have heavier trials and severer losses than this, but never will God's voice speak louder to you than now. It is the loudest knock that can be heard at the door of your heart! Felix might have heard another (perhaps even a more powerful) sermon from Paul "on righteousness, temperance, and the judgment to come; but I believe he would not have again trembled, as he did, when for the first time these appalling realities were presented to his mind.

So with a first bereavement: and therefore it has its solemn responsibilities! Let it not die away in fainter and yet fainter echoes, like the subsiding thunder. Let it be accompanied with the response-"Lord, what wouldst Thou have me to do?" Seek to feel that God has some great end in view-some wise meaning to subserve some gracious lesson to teach. Let it be as a monitory angel telling you to strike your tent and pitch it nearer heaven-" Arise and depart, for this is not your rest!" As we have seen the timid bird hopping from bough to bough till it reach the topmost

branch, and then winging its flight to the sky; so is affliction designed to drive the soul from perch to perch, from refuge to refuge, higher and still higher, till at last it soars upward to the heaven of its God."

THE FIRST TRIAL!-Is it not THE most befitting season either for a first, or for a renewed consecration to God's service? Like a vessel driven from its moorings, you may be drifting unpiloted on a tempestuous sea. Let these raging waters lead you to take shelter in the quiet haven. "Build your nest upon no tree here; for you see God hath sold the forest to death ; and every tree upon which we would rest is ready to be cut down; to the end we may flee and mount up, and build upon the Rock." If at this season you are

a stranger to the power of religion, uncheered by its precious, gracious promises, you are to be pitied indeed. There is no sadder spectacle than the unbefriended, orphaned, widowed, or withered heart, ungladdened by one beam of Bible consolation: the dark valley traversed with no ray of Gospel hope to pierce its shadows! Equally mournful if the heart be unhumbled-if it refuse to bear the rod-if the death chamber only re-echo with your murmurings, and the chastened soul be unable to point to any "peaceable fruit of righteousness," as the result of the Divine dealings! There is a depth of meaning in what a son

1 Samuel Rutherford.

of consolation has said, as he mingles exhortations with solaces-"Unsanctified trials become deep afflictions."

On the other hand, if you are no stranger to Him. who is "the God of all comfort," or if till the present a stranger, you are ready to avail yourself of the one only solace in such an hour, what a hallowed experience yours is! With all the unutterable, untold depths of your sorrow, I know not a time fuller of more chastened joy than the mourning Christian's chamber, when the world is shut out, and he is alone with God! The sun of his earthly happiness set; but this only allowing the clustering constellations of Divine consolation to shine the brighter :-the stars of Bible promise coming out, one by one, like ministering angels; the revelation of scenes which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart conceived!" As in a time of rain and cloud the distant hills look nearer, so do the everlasting hills of glory appear, in the cloudy and dark day, nearer, more glorious, sparkling with

ten thousand rills of love and covenant-faithfulness. You breathe their bracing stimulating atmosphere as you have never done before! If thus cheered, yours is indeed an enviable experience. You have One by you and with you, who can fill all blanks and compensate for all losses; who can make your solitary chamber of mourning a Patmos, bright as the Ægean Isle was to John, with manifestations of a Saviour's presence and love. "If death did come alone to us," again says Bunyan, "it would be terrible indeed; its