cannot will thee, any evil; how could that thought come from the bosom of infinite love. No, let thy sorrows tell thee, that God wills thy repentance, thy virtue, thy happiness, thy preparation for infinite happiness! Let that thought spread holy light through thy darkened chamber. That which is against thee, is not as that which is for thee. Calamity, a dark speck in thy sky, seemeth to be against thee; but God's goodness, the all-embracing light and power of the universe, for ever lives, and shines around thee and for thee.

"Evil and good before him stand,

Their mission to perform."

The angel of gladness is there; but the angel of affliction is there too-and both alike for good. May the angel of gladness visit us as often as is good for us!-I pray for it. But that angel of affliction! what shall we say to it? Shall we not say-" Come thou too, when our Father willeth-come thou, when need is-with saddened brow and pitying eye, come; and take us on thy wings, and bear us up to hope, to happiness, to heaven-to that presence where is fulness of joys-to that right hand, where are pleasures for evermore"?

There is one further thought which I must not fail to submit to you on this subject before I leave it. The greatness of our sufferings points to a correspondent greatness in the end to be gained. When I see what men are suffering around me, I cannot help feeling that it was meant, not only that they should be far better than they are, but far better than often they think of being. The end must rise higher and brighter before us, before we can look through this dark cloud of human calamity. The struggle, the wounds, the carnage and desolation of a battle, would overwhelm me with horror, if it were not fought for freedom, for the fireside-to protect infancy from ruthless butchery, and the purity of our homes from brutal wrong. So is the battle of this life a bewildering maze of misery and despair, till we see the high prize that is set before it. You would not send your son to travel through a barren and desolate wilderness, or to make a long and tedious voyage to an unhealthy clime, but for some great object: say, to make a fortune thereby. And any way, it seems to your parental affection a strange and almost cruel proceeding. Nor would the merciful Father of life have sent his earthly children to struggle through all the sorrows, the pains, and perils of this world, but to attain to the grandeur of a moral fortune, worth all the strife and endurance. No, all this is not ordained in vain, nor in reckless indifference to what we suffer; but for an end, for a high end, for an end higher than we think for. Troubles, disappointments, afflictions, sorrows, press us on every side, that we may rise upward, upward, ever upward. And believe me, in thus rising upward, you shall find the very names that you give to calamity gradually changing. Misery, strictly speaking, and in its full meaning, does not belong to a good mind. Misery shall pass into suffering, and suffering into discipline, and discipline into virtue, and virtue into heaven. So let it pass with you. Bend now patiently and meekly, in that lowly "worship of sorrow," till, in God's time, it become the worship of joy-of proportionably higher joy-in that world where there shall be no more sorrow, nor pain, nor crying-where all tears shall be wiped from your eyes-where beamings of heaven in your countenance shall grow brighter by comparison with all the darkness of earth.

Z

And remember, too, that your forerunner unto that blessed life, passed through this same worship of sorrow. A man of sorrows was that Divine Master, and acquainted with grief. This is the great Sabbath of the year* that commemorates his triumph over sorrow, and pain, and death. And what were the instruments, the means, the ministers of that very victory-that last victory? The rage of men, and the fierceness of torture; arraignment before enemies-mocking, smiting, scourging; the thorny crown, the bitter cross, the barred tomb! With these he fought, through these he conquered, and from these he rose to heaven. And believe me, in something must every disciple be like the master. Clothed in some vesture of pain, of sorrow, or of affliction, must he fight the great battle, and win the great victory. When I stand in the presence of that high example, I cannot listen to poor, unmanly, unchristian complainings. I would not have its disciples account too much of their griefs. Rather would I say, Courage; ye that bear the great, the sublime lot of sorrow! It is not for ever that ye suffer. It is not for nought that ye suffer. It is not without end that ye suffer. God wills it. He spared not his own Son from it. God wills it. It is the ordinance of his wisdom for us. Nay, it is the ordinance of Infinite love, to procure for us an infinite glory and beatitude.

Easter Sunday.

ON THE SCHOOL OF LIFE.

PSALM lxxi. 17: "O God, thou hast taught me from my youth."

LIFE is a school. This world is a house of instruction. It is not a prison nor a penitentiary, nor a palace of ease, nor an amphitheatre for games and spectacles: it is a school. And this view of life is the only one that goes to the depths of the philosophy of life-the only one that answers the great question, solves the great problem of life. For what is life given? If for enjoyment alone, if for suffering merely, it is a chaos of contradictions. But if for moral and spiritual learning, then everything is full of significance-full of wisdom. And this view, too, is of the utmost practical importance. It immediately presents to us, and presses upon us the question-what are we learning? And is not this, truly, the great question? When your son comes home to you at the annual vacation, it is the first question in your thoughts concerning him and you ask him, or you ask for the certificates and testimonials of his teachers, to give you some evidence of his learning. At every passing term in the great school of life, also, this is the all-important question. What has a man got from the experience, discipline, opportunity of any past period? Not what he has gathered together in the shape of any tangible good; but what has he got-in that other and eternal treasure-house-his mind! Not what of outward accommodation the literal scholar has had, should we think it much worth our while to inquire; not whether his text-books had been in splendid bindings; not whether his study-table had been of rich cabinet-work, and his chair softly cushioned; not whether the schoolhouse in which he had studied were of majestic size, or adorned with columns and porticos; let him have got a good education, and it would be comparatively of little moment how or where he got it. We should not ask what honours he had obtained, but as proofs of his progress. Let him have graduated at the most illustrious university, or have gained, through some mistake, its highest distinctions, and still be essentially deficient in mind or in accomplishment, and that fatal defect would sink into every parent's heart as a heavy and unalleviated disappointment. And are such questions and considerations any less appropriate to the great school of life, whose entire course is an education for virtue, happiness, and heaven? "O God!" exclaims the psalmist, "thou hast taught me from my youth."

Life, I repeat, is a school. The periods of life are its terms; all human conditions are but its forms; all human employments its lessons. Families are the primary departments of this moral education; the

various circles of society, its advanced stages; kingdoms are its universities; the world is but the material structure, built for the administration of its teachings; and it is lifted up in the heavens, and borne through its annual circuits, for no end but this.

Life, I say again, is a school: and all its periods-infancy, youth, manhood, and age, have their appropriate tasks in this school.

With what an early care, and wonderful apparatus, does Providence begin the work of human education! An infant being is cast upon the lap of nature, not to be supported or nourished only, but to be instructed. The world is its school. All elements around are its teachers. Long ere it is placed on the first form before the human master, it has been at school; insomuch that a distinguished statesman has said with equal truth and originality, that he had probably obtained more ideas by the age of five or six years, than he has acquired ever since. And what a wonderful ministration is it! What mighty masters are there for the training of infancy in the powers of surrounding nature! With a finer influence than any human dictation, they penetrate the secret places of that embryo soul, and bring it into life and light. From the soft breathings of Spring, to the rough blasts of Winter, each one pours a blessing upon its favourite child, expanding its frame for action, or fortifying it for endurance. You seek for celebrated schools and distinguished teachers for your children; and it is well. Or you cannot afford to give them these advantages, and you regret it. But consider what you have. Talk we of far-sought and expensive processes of education? That infant eye hath its master in the sun; that infant ear is attuned by the melodies and harmonies of the wide, the boundless creation. The goings on of the heavens and the earth are the courses of childhood's lessons. The shows that are painted on the dome of the sky, and on the uplifted mountains, and on the spreading plains and seas, are its pictured diagrams. Immensity, infinity, eternity, are its teachers. The great universe is the shrine from which oracles-oracles by day and by night-are for ever uttered. Well may it be said, that "of such "of beings so cared for-" is the kingdom of heaven." Well and fitly is it written of him who comprehended the wondrous birth of humanity, and the gracious and sublime providence of heaven over it, that he took little children in his arms and blessed them.

So begins the education of man in the school of life. It were easy, did the time permit, to pursue it into its successive stages; into the period of youth, when the senses, not yet vitiated, are to be refined into grace and beauty, and the soul is to be developed into reason and virtue; of manhood, when the strength of the ripened passions is to be held under the control of wisdom, and the matured energies of the higher nature are to be directed to the accomplishment of worthy and noble ends; of age, which is to finish with dignity the work begun with ardour; which is to learn patience in weakness, to gather up the fruits of experience into maxims of wisdom, to cause virtuous activity to subside into pious contemplation, and to gaze upon the visions of heaven, through the parting veils of earth.

But in the next place, life presents lessons in its various pursuits and conditions, in its ordinances and events. Riches and poverty, gaieties and sorrows, marriages and funerals, the ties of life bound or broken,

fit and fortunate, or untoward and painful, are all lessons. They are not only appointments, but they are lessons. They are not things which must be, but things which are meant. Events are not blindly and carelessly flung together, in a strange chance-medley; providence is not schooling one man, and screening another from the fiery trial of its lessons; it has no rich favourites nor poor victims; one event happeneth to all; one end, one design, concerneth, urgeth all men.

Hast thou been prosperous? Thou hast been at school; that is all; thou hast been at school. Thou thoughtest, perhaps, that it was a great thing, and that thou wert some great one; but thou art only just a pupil. Thou thoughtest that thou wast master, and hadst nothing to do but to direct and command; but I tell thee that there is a Master above thee; the Master of life; and that He looks not at thy splendid state nor thy many pretensions; not at the aids and appliances of thy learning; but simply at thy learning. As an earthly teacher puts the poor boy and the rich upon the same form, and knows no difference between them but their progress, so it is with thee and thy poor neighbour. What then hast thou learnt from thy prosperity? This is the question that I am asking, that all men are asking, when any one has suddenly grown prosperous, or has been a long time so. And I have heard men say in a grave tone, "He cannot bear it!-he has become passionate, proud, self-sufficient and disagreeable." Ah! fallen, disgraced man! even in the world's account. But what, I say again, hast thou learnt from prosperity? Moderation, temperance, candour, modesty, gratitude to God, generosity to man? Well done, good and faithful; thou hast honour with heaven and with men. But what, again I say, hast thou learnt from thy prosperity? Selfishness, self-indulgence, and sin?-to forget or overlook thy less fortunate fellow?-to forget thy God? Then wert thou an unworthy and dishonoured being, though thou hadst been nursed in the bosom of the proudest affluence, or hadst taken thy degrees from the lineage of an hundred noble descents-yes, as truly dishonoured, before the eye of Heaven, though dwelling in splendour and luxury, as if thou wert lying, the victim of beggary and vice, by the hedge, or upon the dunghill. It is the scholar, not the school, at which the most ordinary human equity looks; and let us not think that the equity of heaven will look beneath that lofty mark.

But art thou, to whom I speak, a poor man? Thou, too, art at school. Take care that thou learn, rather than complain. Keep thine integrity, thy candour and kindliness of heart. Beware of envy; beware of bondage; keep thy self-respect. The body's toil is nothing. Beware of the mind's drudgery and degradation. I do not say, be always poor. Better thy condition if thou canst. But be more anxious to better thy soul. Be willing, while thou art poor, patiently to learn the lessons of poverty-fortitude, cheerfulness, contentment, trust in God. The tasks I know are hard; deprivation, toil, the care of children. Thou must wake early; thy children, perhaps, will wake thee; thou canst not put them away from thee to a distant nursery. Fret not thyself because of this; but cheerfully address thyself to thy task; learn patience, calmness, self-command, disinterestedness, love. With these

the humblest dwelling may be hallowed, and so made dearer and nobler than the proudest mansion of self-indulgent ease and luxury. But