from absolute dejection as from unseemly elevation. The softened temper, naturally produced by the simple impact of affliction, opens itself with a natural and blessed willingness to the thoughts of religion the mere void caused by the breaking of earthly ties, brings the feelings towards God; and, in the life of man, there is no sincerer outbursting of the spirit of prayer (as assuredly there is none attended with truer or more unfailing comfort) than that which takes place when sorrow is first directed to turn itself to God. Nor is it an unfeeling comfort, found by forgetting or neglecting the memory of the past; it is the genuine spirit of meek and holy humility, which acknowledges the providence of God in all the dispositions of the world, which takes occasion to pour out its own confession before God, from the circumstances of its grief, and which feels in Christian hope the real antidote to Christian

sorrow.

But these are rather the extreme cases, in which the Christian spirit of meekness shows its highest powers they are not the cases in which it is to be educated, so much as displayed. It is rather in the ordinary course of life, in the daily pressure of petty trials, in the constant ripple of undistinguishable and nameless feelings, that most men have their scope both for forming and showing forth the meek and humble temper.

And this, it may be observed, is a caution which we very much need to have continually impressed

upon us.

The greater occasions of feeling, the instances of external and visible act, are remarked and remembered; to these men give names,—by these, for the most part, they judge of characters. But the indefinable flow of inward feelings,-the daily, hourly modes in which thoughts are repelled or cherished, in which the lights and shadows of ten thousand mingled feelings pass over the mind, and without exhibiting themselves in one external act, form the real materials of habitual and settled tempers, these are things which men are disposed to overlook and disregard. As if our characters were formed only by those few deeds which other men can see in us, while our hearts might be allowed to run wild in the intervals; as if every minute of our lives, whether passed alone or in society, in quiet meditation or active duty, were not full of many accessions of habitual temper, of feelings governed or ungoverned, of thoughts admitted or repelled!

For, to take a case which is more or less common to all, among the strange phenomena of feeling, how often it happens that men are subject to variations, to ebbs and flows, if I may so speak, of spirit; at one time cheerful, full of hope, confidence, and satisfaction; at another, and without any assignable cause of change, gloomy, retired, and unhappy. And this change of feeling applies alike to temporal and spiritual matters: worldly fortune and religious comfort are at one moment readily promised, when the heart is light and cheerful; and

then again, with the recurrence of dejection, the prospects of fortune are clouded over, and the favour of God seems withdrawn. And with these changes, which vary in intensity from the ordinary experience of every man who watches his own heart, to the state of alternate happiness and misery, which borders upon madness, there is a continual and ever-present danger of yielding to the temptation of a peevish and discontented spirit. A man feels something like comfort in giving way to a half-despairing melancholy. Though his thoughts do not break out into actual words or deeds of rebellion, yet he is retiring within himself, he is withdrawing himself alike from the presence of God and his brethren; he is utterly forgetting the meek and simple spirit of his great example.

Or again, when we consider the various modes in which the ordinary course of society gives occasion to feelings of irritation or displeasure (in different degrees indeed to different tempers, but more or less to all,)-how many and various temptations to desert this meek and gentle spirit arise before us! Even if the case be not one of actual provocation or offence, a man is often secretly dissatisfied with things done or said; or he allows himself to use causeless, perhaps scarcely charitable, strength of language, in speaking of others' faults or opinions; or deeply convinced of the truth of certain views of His own, He allows no licence, perhaps attributes scarcely common

honesty, to those who differ from him in these, and many similar cases, how easy and how natural it is to depart from the model of our Lord's meekness and humility! Men rashly trust themselves with strong words; they easily deceive themselves into thinking that their displeasure is zeal for the cause of truth: but they forget how soon such words and such feelings operate mischievously upon themselves, in destroying the genuine character of Christian meekness!

There is perhaps no single virtue of Christian religion which is so characteristic as this one; for it is not only the one which our Lord's example puts before us in the most remarkable prominency, but it is also the most alien of all to the common feelings of our corrupt nature. It is founded in a true sense of unworthiness; and men have a wonderful power in deceiving themselves in regard to unworthiness: and it gains cheerfulness from a sense of redemption, and men are strangely anxious to forget that they need redemption. For meekness does not consist only in the destruction of pride: though lowliness be the most important part of it, yet it also contains within it a real cheerfulness and content, arising from the consciousness of pardon purchased by the death of Christ.

And as it is thus unlike to the tempers of the unregenerate man, so is it under the blessed influence of the Spirit only that it can spring or

be matured in the heart. With constant prayer and communion it must be cultivated and cherished, and God will assuredly give the increase; and of all Christian graces, it is the one which shows itself most unequivocally in the quiet tenor of the feelings, the disciplined and ordered thoughts, the outward gentleness and peaceableness of the temper. No Christian virtue is more full of influence upon other men. They feel the gentle reproof of a meek and forgiving spirit; they acknowledge the grace that shines in a gentle and humble temper; and under God's blessing it is one of the most usual instruments in producing a similar spirit in them. And if in the cultivation of such a blessed temper we find discouragement,-if natural severity or inequality of spirit constantly subjects us (as when will it cease to subject us?) to the danger of giving way to the natural tempers which we are striving to unlearn,-let not this be any thing but an additional incitement to holy zeal in prayer, and more diligent keeping of the heart. Such things are much to be expected. The operations of the Holy Spirit on the heart are gentle and gradual. The habitual Christian graces are too unlike our unregenerate hearts to be gained without toil. Let such feelings rather be regarded as proofs that we are advancing on the whole, than as indications of a worse state; for that man cannot be seriously going wrong who with continual prayer and humble earnestness