Prayer.

OH Lord God Almighty, the loving Father of all who draw nigh to Thee, trusting in the name, and in the precious merits of Thy dear Son, we bless Thee for Thy tender care of us, from the very first. Thou art the Keeper of Thy chosen people, Thou guardest them from destruction, Thou art never weary of doing them good. Oh mercifully watch, we beseech Thee, over our sick brother. Grant that, through Thy grace, he may be able to discern Thy love in afflicting him, and that Thou of very faithfulness hast caused him to be troubled. Make him henceforth a fruitful branch of the True Vine. Purge out of his heart the old leaven, and cleanse his soul from all guilt, through a fruitful faith in the allatoning merits of the precious blood of Thy dear Son. Establish him in Thy righteousness, oh Lord. Extend Thy grace to him henceforth, even for ever, that he may abide in Christ, and Christ in him. Give him confidence to ask of Thee, through the Spirit, and for the sake of the sacrifice of Thy dear Son, once for all offered upon the cross, all things really profitable to him, and well-pleasing in Thy sight. Glorify Thy holy name, oh Lord God Almighty,

in him and in us.

Give us Thy grace, that we may love, and labour for the salvation of all men: that there may be joy in Thy presence over us, and that our joy may be full. Hear us, blessed Lord, we pray Thee, for Thy dear Son's sake, Jesus our Redeemer, to Whom with Thee and the Holy Spirit, be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

L.

CONSOLATION IN TROUBLE ABOUNDING.

2 CORINTHIANS i. 3-11.

EVERY one who has only ordinary knowledge of holy scripture must have observed that God is revealed therein both as permitting and removing affliction. There is a remarkable passage in the Book of Job, in which this characteristic of His good providence over us is plainly stated: "Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore, despise not

thou the chastening of the Almighty: for He maketh sore, and bindeth up: He woundeth, and His hands make whole."-(Job v. 18, 19.) To the Jews, under the Mosaic dispensation, He thus revealed Himself: "See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no God with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of My hand. (Deuteronomy xxxii. 39). "Thou art with me," sang the royal psalmist of Israel, "Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me."-(Psalm xxiii 4.) Every spiritually-minded Christian must have found that in His tender lovingkindness the Lord has troubled him. We are all ready indeed to subscribe to the truth of St. Paul's assertion, "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." (Hebrews xii 11.) And just before this the apostle had asked, "Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness. (Hebrews xii. 9, 10.) And once more, let us not omit to notice those gracious declarations of God by the mouth of the prophet Isaiah: "Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy

place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before Me, and the souls which I have made. For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid Me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him : I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips; peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him."(Isaiah lvii 15-19.)

After reading passages like these, and feeling that all sincere believers have known the long-suffering mercies of the most High, in sorrow as well as in joy, who wonders that the apostle, cast down, perplexed, persecuted as he was, should yet break forth as one knowing his Saviour's peace in the midst of all his trials, with a strength of faith and a fervour of devotion that I pray God you and I also may possess "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God?”

My dear brother faint not, though at this time you are realizing the truth of David's words addressed to God, "When Thou with rebukes dost chasten man for sin, Thou makest his beauty to consume away, like as it were a moth fretting a garment: every man, therefore, is but vanity." Rather remember the words of this same David, the man after God's own heart, when, on the occasion of the sword the famine and the pestilence having been offered to him to select from, as the punishment for his sin in having numbered the people, he replied, "I am in a great strait: let us fall now into the hand of the Lord; for His mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man."-(2 Samuel xxiv. 14.) It is only meet and right, my brother, that you and I, who are named after Christ, should, through His grace, be willing, and even eager, to drink of the cup that He drank of, and to be baptized with the baptism wherewith He was baptized." You cannot fail to notice how cheerful, how happy, how perfectly content St. Paul was, though, as far as this world is concerned, he might almost be said to have been "of all men most miserable." You cannot possibly know but that release from your present affliction is at hand. But at a season when this apostle knew, through the Spirit, that he was about to sink deeper and deeper into the mire of trouble, though his friends would fain have deterred