Ere long, these surging waves will settle peacefully around you, the shadows of heaven reflected in their glassy surface; and better still, strengthened and renovated by that season of trial, you will go forth from the Graver's hands more ready to brave the billows, grapple with the tempest, and reach at last the haven where you would be!

It is hard discipline-the undowny pillow, the trench-work and midnight vigils-which makes the better soldier. The type of strength in the kingdom of inanimate nature is not the sickly plant of the hot-house, or the tree or bush choked in the dark jungle; but the pine rocked by Alpine or Norwegian tempests, or the oak mooring its roots in the rifted rock! David would neither have been the King nor the Saint he was, but for the caves of Adullam and Engedi, the rocks of the wild goats, the forest exile of Hermon and Gilead. He had to thank affliction for his best spiritual graces. The redeemed in glory are ready to tell the same. "We would never have been here but for these storms of 'great tribulation.' But for the loss of that child —that worldly calamity—that protracted sickness—

that cutting disappointment-that wounding of

my heart's affection-that annihilation of earthly pride and ambition—that 'deep calling to deep'— I would not now have been wearing this crown!" Trials have been well compared to the winds God employs to fill our sails and fetch us home to the harbour of everlasting peace! *

One word of caution ere we close this chapter. From all we have said-of "deeps" and "floods," storms and water-spouts, and midnight darknessare any to leave these pages with the feeling that Religion is a gloomy, repulsive thing;-that the believer's life is one of darkness and despair;—that better far is the world's gaiety and folly-the merry laugh of its light-hearted votaries-than a life of sadness like this? Mistake us not! We repeat what we have already said. The experience we have been now considering is, in many respects, peculiar; one of those dark passages which stand alone in the diary of the spiritual life. Religion gloomy! Who says so? Shall we take St Paul as our oracle? What is his testimony? In all his

* See "Life Thoughts." The author has been more than once indebted, in this volume, to this suggestive little book.

letters he tries to crowd as much as he can into little space. In one of these, he has room for only two injunctions. But instead of giving two that are different, he prefers to repeat the one. It is the emphatic tautology, "Rejoice in the Lord alway: and AGAIN I say, REJOICE."* Or shall we seek a different tribunal? Go gather together all the philosophers of antiquity-Plato, Socrates, Aristotle. Bring together the wise men of Greece-the philosophers of Alexandria-the sages of Rome. Ask if their combined and collected wisdom ever solved the doubts of one awakened soul, as have done these leaves of this Holy Book? Which of them ever dried the tear of widowhood as these? Which of them ever smoothed the cheek of the fatherless as these? Which of them ever lighted the torch of hope and peace at the dying bed as these, and flashed upon the departing soul visions of unearthly joy? O pagan darkness! where was thy song in the night? In the region and shadow of death, where did thy light arise?

But we have a "more sure word of prophecy, to which we do well to take heed, as unto a light

* Phil. iv. 4.

shining in a dark place." The Christian is the man who alone can wear the sunny countenance. The peace of God, keeping the heart within, cannot fail to be mirrored in the look and life without! And if (as often is the case) he has his appointed seasons of trial-the sea of life swept with storms of great tribulation-it is with him as with yonder ocean. To the eye of the young voyager, gazing on its mountain billows, it would seem as if its lowest caverns were stirred, and the world were rocking to its foundations; while, after all, it is only a surfaceheaving! There are deeps, unfathomed deeps, of calm rest and peace, down in that ocean's undisturbed recesses.

Believer in Jesus! with all thy trials, thou art a happy man. Go on thy way rejoicing. Tribulation may fret and ruffle the calm of thy outer life, but nothing can touch the deeps of thy nobler being. Troubles may rise, and "terrors may frown," and

days of darkness" may fall around thee, but "Thou wilt keep him, O God, IN PERFECT PEACE whose mind is stayed on THEE!”

XI.

Faith and Prayer.

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee!"

"The soul of man serves the purpose, as it were, of a workshop to Satan, in which to forge a thousand methods of despair. And therefore it is not without reason that David, after a severe conflict with himself, has recourse to prayer, and calls upon God as the witness of his sorrow."-Calvin on the Psalms.

“I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me ? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?"-Verses 9, 10.