Therefore, you have to meet, not one flushed with victory and laden with the spoils; but one whose head has been bruised, and against whom, therefore, it will be easy and certain to prevail.

I know no circumstances on earth in which a Christian can be placed, if a Christian, in which he will not find more springs of thankfulness to God than reasons to despair and be sorrowful. We need our blessings to leave us, just to enable us to appreciate them. Very often we never discovered that an angel has been with us, till the splendor of his parting wing tells us he is gone. Very often absence is necessary to the enjoyment of presence; and if God did not sometimes take away the blessings that are choicest, we never should appreciate them as we wish to do with thankful hearts. And when we have not left one tiny taper burning upon earth, we are never without the bright and the morning Star shining down from the sky. When all things below forsake us, there still rings from the midst of the throne that promise, which sanctifieth things that we have, and is more than a substitute for things that are gone, "I will never leave thee; I will never, no, never forsake thee." Such, then, are some of the circumstances in which believers may be placed, and in which, nevertheless, they are still to be thankful to God. And now, if we thank God in the midst of our trials, when laid low, if we thank him in the midst of our sorrows, he will pour joys into the heart that is broken; if we thank God that he has opened our eyes to see our own hearts, how sinful they are, he will open our eyes to see our Saviour, how precious he is; if we thank him that he has enabled us to see ourselves, he will reveal to us himself, and make all his glory pass before us, and we shall find that the unloading of the full heart in thanksgiving, and the expression of the empty heart in praise, will equally be acceptable to that God, who expects

this tribute of thanksgiving for all his mercies and his blessings, and for all his dealings towards us.

Such trials as these we should feel thankful for, because they are necessary for the exercise of our faith. Many persons are continually doubting, Am I a true believer? Have I real faith? Then, if you are thus doubting and anxious to know if you have true faith, why do you quarrel with God, if he puts you in the ordeal that is to test and to try you. If you wish to know whether you are true Christians, you must submit to God's process of letting you know. If you cannot bear the trials, then you do not appreciate the blessings that the apostle speaks of when he says, "Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations; that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

In the hovels of the poor, which successive waves of sorrow, and poverty, and wants have swept; in the dim chamber of sorrow, which the beloved has left, and a chasm remains that life cannot fill; even in such circumstances as these faith finds nutriment and religion erects its trophies; and at the end the experienced Christian is constrained to say, not in prayer, but rather to sing in joyful praise, "It was good for me that I was afflicted." Look behind you, look before you, look below the level on which you are, look above it, and you will find reason only for praise. Look to yourself in trial, or in bereavement, and you will find only reason for thanks. "All things work for good to them that love God;" "our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh out for us a far more exceeding, even an eternal weight of glory." Look at creation, look at nature

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in its noontide summer, when covered with flowers and giving promise of fruit. Is there no reason to thank God that, though sin has dimmed the light of this world, and the trail of the serpent has stained its countenance once so beautiful, and we deserve that it should be our grave instead of being our footstool, there is left so much to be thankful for, from the green fir to the giant oak; from the minutest insect in the dew-drop on the leaf, to the very largest inhabitant of the deep? In providential dealings is there not much to thank God for? Did you, dear reader, calculate ten, twenty years ago, that you would be where you are now? Is it not obvious from the past chapter of your biography that an unseen hand has led you, that a kind Physician's hand has closed many a wound; that there has been no siek-bed in your home from which you have not gathered lessons of immortality; and that there is no grave, of which you have a freehold in the distant churchyard, that grows not green at least with bright hopes, and that tells you not of a happy meeting with all you love when time shall be no more? Is there any one who can for one moment read his own biography, and not see much to mourn over, much to regret, much to deplore, but oh! infinitely more to thank and to praise God for? And shall I mention the last of all

the gift of a Saviour? How very beautiful and how true is that collect, "We thank thee for our creation, we thank thee for our preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all, for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!" He drank our bitter cup and filled the blessed one; he came to die for us all. The wrath of God let fall an awful shadow upon that bright light. The Son of God trod that sea that had no shore but death, bearing our sins, expiating our guilt. The man that can hear

of such a Saviour, and yet not trust, or taste such a salvation, and yet not thank him, is not only destitute of the first glory of the human, but is absolutely destitute of every attribute of the Divine.

THERE is repeatedly announced in Scripture the existence of a Divine Being, or Divine Agent, who takes up his abode in the hearts of God's believing people, as teacher, comforter, and guide. He is called sometimes the Spirit of truth, sometimes the Comforter, and sometimes the Holy Ghost. Repeatedly we are told in Scripture, that the want of this Spirit in the individual heart is the reason of the languor of such graces as are there, or the reason of the absence of such graces as ought to be there.

stance, describes the strongest brand on the

Jude, for in

character of

the enemies of God, in these words, "Not having the