Allowing the existence and constant presence of an overruling Providence, it is not too much to say, that there is no possible situation in which a man can be placed, in this sublunary world, that he will be wholly incompetent to sustain. There is not one influence, whether exciting or depressing, that the human mind cannot check, although it may be unable, in some instances, to reduce it to complete subjection. It is our prostration that gives the sharpest bitterness to sorrow; and prosperity has its greatest dangers (for prosperity is not without dangers, and great ones) from our unwary self-reliance. If we could meet success in a sober spirit, and, while we drink from the cup of fortune, curb its intoxicating inspirations with a recollection of the instability and mere temporariness of worldly possessions, prosperity would have no power to disturb the evenness of our mind, or to contract and freeze up the dignity of our nature. In the same way, if we would but bear in remembrance how unavoidable and transient are our troubles, how utterly pointless the scoffs and contempt and mockery of a selfish world, and, finally, how soon we shall “shuffle off this mortal coil,” adversity would lose its chill, and even the anguish of the sorrowing heart would be materially and sensibly mitigated. It is by ourselves that the auxiliary and sustaining qualities of our nature are created. It is from our voluntary will, that leading distinction between man and brute (which makes us rational and accountable creatures) that these qualities mainly spring; and it is by the same will alone, humanly speaking, that we can look from the heights of fortune with composure, and meet tribulation without despair. Nevertheless, the weakness of the human mind is such, on occasions of severe trial, that its will cannot be brought thus to act of its own self, or continue to act unaided. The rightful operation of nature cannot be maintained, or its functions be duly and efficiently discharged, but in perfect and unvarying conformity with her unalterable laws. As it is not the summer alone, but the other seasons also, in their regular rotation, that is necessary to bring forth the fruits of the earth, so the health of the human heart depends on the effective administration of the whole system. Not only our free will, but that sense of right and wrong by which our free will should be governed, and which can always be called up from the lucid depths of the bosom, is an essential support against every trial. Mighty of itself, it leads us, as an unfailing consequence, to rely principally for aid on a still mightier Auxiliary--the eternal and beneficent Dispenser of good and evil.