ness, grows hard and frigid! But unless the ice melt again, and the tender affections, even in a chilling atmosphere, regain their ascendency, the apparent love and gentleness of that nature was spurious.
Not a trial is sent but as a regenerating and perfecting agent. From the death-like stroke of affliction, from the deep humiliation which covers us with sackcloth and ashes, from the misfortunes that strip us of all, the spirit that can be purified rises stronger and gladder, with upward-looking eyes and chastened heart.
Those terrible bereavements, the snapping of those holy links that convulse our spirits and cast us prostrate on the earth, in despair, are only permitted to give birth, through this agonizing travail, to some new and holier state; to produce some great calm growing out of the mind's tempest, when the voice of the Lord has spoken to the raging waters and the wild winds of the soul, and said, "Peace! Be still!"
But all these heavenly ends are frustrated if we destroy the possibilities of happiness implanted within us, by idle repining; if we cast away the mental and physical instruments apportioned for our use, saying, "They are blunted, they are not as noble as another man's, they are unmeet for us;" in short, if we murmur at our lots in life.
However exposed or barren, however lowly or obscure, is the corner allotted to us in our Lord's
