Dear Christian reader, this is our model; thus ought we to meet the trials and difficulties, the reproach, obloquy and desertion of this present time. We should view _all_ in the light of "_hereafter_." "Our light affliction," says an eminent sufferer, "which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Again, "But the God of all grace, who hath called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you." "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have _suffered_ these things, and to enter into His _glory_?" Yes; suffering must come first and glory afterwards; and any one who, by his own hand, would seek to take off the edge of present suffering and reproach, proves that the kingdom is not filling the vision of his soul,--that _now_ is more influential with him than "_hereafter_." How we ought to bless our God for having opened to us such a vista of glory in the ages to come! How it enables us to tread, with a buoyant step, our rugged path through the wilderness! How it lifts us above the things which engross the children of this world! "We're not of the world, which fadeth away, We're not of the night, but children of day; The chains that once bound us by Jesus are riven, We're strangers on earth, and our home is in heaven." May we prove the sacred reality of this more, as we pass along through "this vale of tears." Truly the heart would sink and the spirit faint, were we not sustained by hope--even the hope of glory, which, thank God, maketh not ashamed, for the Spirit is the earnest of it in our hearts.