All this is very good and very right and very precious, but then there is a great danger of our resting in the mercies, the blessings, and the benefits which flow, in such rich profusion, from our Father's loving heart and liberal hand. We are apt to rest in these things, and say with the Psalmist, "In _my prosperity_ I said, 'I shall never be moved. Lord, by Thy favor Thou hast made _my mountain_ to stand strong.'" True, it is "by Thy favor," but yet we are prone to be occupied with _our_ mountain and _our_ prosperity; we allow these things to come in between our hearts and the Lord, and thus they become a snare to us. Hence the need of chastening. Our Father, in His faithful love and care, is watching over us; He sees the danger and He sends trial, in one shape or another. Perhaps a telegram comes announcing the death of a beloved child, or the crash of a bank involving the loss of our earthly all; or, it may be, we are laid on a bed of pain and sickness, or called to watch by the sick bed of a beloved relative. In a word, we are called to wade through deep waters which seem, to our poor, feeble, coward hearts, absolutely overwhelming. The enemy suggests the question. Is this love? Faith replies, without hesitation and without reserve, Yes; it is all love--perfect love; the death of the child, the loss of the property, the long, heavy, painful illness, all the sorrow, all the pressure, all the exercise, the deep waters and dark shadows--all, all is love--perfect love and unerring wisdom. I feel assured of it, even now; I do not wait to know it by and by, when I shall look back on the path from amid the full light of the glory; I know it now, and delight to own it to the praise of that infinite grace which has taken me up from the depth of my ruin, and charged itself with all that concerns me, and which deigns to occupy itself with my very failures, follies, and sins, in order to deliver me from them, and to make me a partaker of divine holiness, and conform me to the image of that blessed One who "loved Me and gave Himself for me."