ELEVENTH DAY.

The Burthen of Daily Life.

AS for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice. He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me: for there were many with me. God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that abideth of old. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God. He hath put forth his hands against such as be at peace with him: he hath broken his covenant. The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords. Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.

Ps. lv. 16-22.

Be merciful unto me, O God: for man would swallow me up; he fighting daily oppresseth me. Mine enemies would daily swallow me up: for they be many that fight against me, O thou most High. What time I am afraid,

I will trust in thee. In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me. Every day they wrest my words: all their thoughts are against me for evil. They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps, when they wait for my soul. Shall they escape by iniquity? in thine anger cast down the people, O God. Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book? When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me. God will I praise his word: in the Lord will I praise his word. In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.

In

Ps. lvi. 1-11.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or à tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they

shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

I Cor. xiii.

T. T. CARTER.

THE outward circumstances in which we are placed

have their own special office as a means of spiritual chastening. We are girt about with innumerable influences from which we cannot escape, which act upon us unceasingly from hour to hour. Let us consider only the influence, whether for good or for evil, which is exercised upon us by our daily intercourse with our fellow-creatures. By an irresistible law of our nature, we act upon each other's inner life with a continual force, as the pulses of the air act upon the bodily frame. If our natures moved wholly according to the will of God, this law of mutual contact and influence would be a source of perpetual bliss, but the fall has caused that close fellowship, that keen sensibility,

which were to have been the rich enhancement of every pure joy, to be the occasions of a searching discipline, and ofttimes the aggravations of suffering, in proportion to the prevalence of sin, and the multiform workings of our common infirmity. And thus the whole order of the world, because of its manifold imperfections, is become a means of spiritual discipline. The anxieties and weariness of our daily work, the faults of our daily companions, disappointments and oppositions even in our schemes of benevolence, the pressure of responsibility, the failure of sympathy where we had surely looked to find it, the passing away of fond dreams and imaginings, the defects clinging to objects of fondest love or most ardent admiration,-these, and other like manifestations, universally accompanying our disordered and imperfect state, have their office in the providence of God to chasten us, by as certain a law as that which determines His more direct judgments. It is long before we understand that evils arising from no fault of our own, that the sins and infirmities of other men, are part of God's appointed discipline, intended to act as a special chastening for the attainment of higher forms of sanctity. We readily perceive that it is a righteous thing to suffer the consequences of our own faults, and to be patient under our own infirmity. We are large in our expectations that others should bear with us, and are provoked if they fail in considerateness for our imperfections. We are angry if they are imperfect, indignant if they do not sympathize with us

even in our most trifling annoyances. We can discern in them the least fault, and count it a sufficient justification of such irritableness or complaint. But we are slow to apprehend that these 'pricks in our eyes and thorns in our sides' are God's own instruments, fraught with unspeakable virtue, if we use them aright, for the attainment of great spiritual improvement, through the constant patient self-discipline which their endurance requires; even as they are the occasions and provocatives of unceasing sin, if we refuse to bear with others as we need to be borne with ourselves. All external circumstances, whether direct from God or indirect through man, whether from open enemies or dearest friends, whether intended or simply casual, through wilful sin or unavoidable infirmity, are component parts of that furnace through which our nature is passing, and in which, if at all, our sanctification is to be attained. The scene of our abode, the companions of our ordinary course, the incidental details of our day's employment, the chance tenor of our leisure hour, even the most passing interruption, the merest accident, equally as the most settled purpose, together form the complex web of a system of discipline by which God, Who rules and shapes them to His own ends, is searching us through and through, constraining us, if we follow His call, to surrender our will to be formed in all things according to His own most perfect will.

The Son of Man 'was in all points tempted like as we are.' These lesser forms of temptation were among