learn to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."

And, first, let us take the case of a professed scoffer at religion; a being of violent passions and brutal manners, who fears neither God nor man, and defies both to do their worst. He is arrested, we will suppose, by the arm of Omnipotence, in his profligate course; he is thrown by a stronger hand than his own upon the couch of pain and dejection; he learns for the first time to tremble; he is dismayed-God has brought him to himself. He feels his awful condition; and eagerly asks, "How shall I escape the condemnation of hell?" We will not picture all the steps of his future progress: we will suppose him softened, humbled, converted; conducted by the Holy Spirit to newness of life and faith as it is in Jesus; adoring the God whom he once blasphemed, and loving the Saviour whom he so lately reviled. And whence arose this happy, this unexpected change? Sanctified affliction was the first step. This softened the stony ground: this prepared the heart for holy impressions. "Before he was afflicted he went astray, but now he keeps God's word." And will not such an one be ready to exclaim with Hezekiah, "By these things men live, and by these is the life of the spirit?"

But, to take a somewhat less marked but not less decisive instance, imagine a man careless and indifferent to religion, though not a hardened scoffer against it. He is too busy with the world and the things of the world to spend a thought upon his eternal safety. Day succeeds to day, and night to night, without one serious reflection. Death and eternity, heaven and hell, are words that seldom reach his ears, and never disturb his repose. But God brings him low. In the silence and solitude of affliction he is forced to think. He inquires who and what he is; for what he was sent into the world, and how he may be happy when he leaves it. The companions that drove serious thought from his mind are now absent; he begins to recover from the perpetual giddiness of his former life; he reads, he meditates, he prays; and God in his mercy appoints the chamber of sickness to teach him lessons which he had never learned in the noisy walks of business, or amidst the overpowering allurements of pleasure. What cause will such a one have for ever to bless Him who wounds. that he may heal, who kills that he may make alive!

Again; let us imagine an inconsistent backsliding Christian brought into deep affliction. He finds that his uncertain profession now profits him nothing. The comforts and repose

which he looked forward to have vanished. He feels guilt and distress in his conscience. He perceives that he has acted unwisely and ungratefully; that he has been crucifying his Saviour afresh, and putting him to an open shame. There was a time when the candle of the Lord shone brightly around his path; but now he is in darkness and dismay. He has not lived up to his high privileges, and, therefore, does not now enjoy their blessings. He finds, to use a scriptural expression, that he has forsaken his first love, and has been daily approaching nearer and nearer to that world which he had professedly forsaken. But affliction sets him to think; he begins to inquire wherefore God thus contends with him, and conscience soon whispers the cause. He returns to him whom he had forsaken; and God says of him, "I will heal his backslidings, I will receive him graciously, I will love him freely." Thus his religion becomes strengthened and confirmed; he walks more closely than ever with his God; and though after his affliction he may, like Hezekiah, "go softly"—that is, in pain and dejection of mind or body-all his days, yet he will long have to remember with gratitude the affliction that gave a turn to the ebbing tide, and made it flow anew with love and gratitude and devotion to his Heavenly

Parent.

Look again at the Pharisee. He has covered himself during the season of prosperity with the flimsy robe of his self-righteousness. But God brings him into distress, within sight of death and eternity. His sins spring up with new aggravations before his eyes; his selfconfidence is broken; his best virtues cannot stand the withering glance of the Divine displeasure. He is unmasked to himself, and begins to exclaim, "What must I do to be saved?" His language is no longer, "Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men;" but, "Lord, have mercy upon me a sinner." Thus he is brought into the true posture for the reception of mercy. God waiteth to be gracious to such a one; and having prepared the heart for the good seed of the word of eternal life, he will cause it to take root downward, and grow upward to the praise and glory of his own Name. What a blessing, then, has affliction been to such a character! It has been the means of shewing him all that was in his heart, and of thus leading him to a better righteousness than his own for pardon and acceptance with God.

And to take but one example more,-that of the dejected Christian. How often has such a one had reason to exclaim of afflictions, that "by these things men live!" The season of weakness and distress is often that which God

employs for the brightest manifestations of his love and tenderness. He often sees fit, in proportion as the earthly house of this tabernacle is undergoing dissolution, to bring into lively prospect that "building of God," that "house, not made with hands," which is "eternal in the heavens." Supported by heavenly consolations, the mourner is often led to see the kindness as well as wisdom of the Divine dispensations; so as to be willing, if he had his choice, to take the bitter with the sweet, rather than lose the lessons and the blessings which they were designed in conjunction to convey. St. Paul no longer prayed for deliverance from the "thorn in the flesh," when he had experienced the truth of the Divine assertion, "My grace is sufficient for thee." The chamber of sickness and affliction thus seems oftentimes to be the very gate of heaven. God then brings the sufferer into closer union with himself, and gives him to feel the value and power of true religion. Many a dejected Christian, who dreaded the hour of trial, has found, when it approached, that God has made a way for his deliverance. In the season of pain, or sickness, or affliction, his spiritual graces have matured; love and faith, patience and gratitude, have had their perfect work. The spiritual consolations which would not flourish when all around was prosperous, have begun to gain