COMFORT: A BOOK FOR THE COTTAGE. BY JANE BESEMERES 66 (Janet Byrne), AUTHOR OF UNCLE NED'S STORIES OF THE TROPICS," INTRODUCTORY. OMFORT-we all need it at some time or other of our lives; most of us need it every day, for in the midst of life's joys there is a daily cross to bear. God who made us knows what we need, and is as ready to rain down comfort upon our souls as He is to give the kindly dews of heaven that water the earth and refresh it, making it bring forth fruit for the body. Comfort abounds everywhere; we have only to put forth our hands and take it. There is the comfort of knowing that our Father who is perfectly good and just rules over all, and that all things, if we love Him, will work together for our good. There is the comfort of prayer in which we may draw near to Him and tell Him all our wants. The comfort too of the Book which tells of our blessed Lord's life, of His wonderful words and works, of His death, and of His glorious resurrection. There is the comfort of the Sacraments, pledges and signs as they are of His great love. There is His own promise to send "the Comforter" to us, and in due time to come Himself, and take us to the home which He is preparing for us above. We have His assurance also that He looks down even now with tender sympathy on all our trials and temptations, and is ever ready to help us. What need we more? Only to take hold of it all by faith-to believe it, and to live here as His children, trying to do His will in real earnest, and to give up every faculty of our souls and bodies to His service. If we do this, life will be a pleasure to us, I had almost said suffering would be a pleasure to us, for His dear sake. But there must be many a hard fight with self, there must be a very real offering up of ourselves, our souls and bodies to His service, before we can in any measure begin to feel this. We are told that He, for the joy set before Him, the joy of redeeming our souls, endured the Cross. Cannot we, for the joy of pleasing Him who has so loved us, endure to suffer patiently for a little while, with the hope that when we have passed "the waves of this troublesome |