Christianity offers us no exemption from the ills of life, but gives us grace to bear them, and sanctifies all to our highest good. It is as true now as in the days of David, "Many are the afflictions of the righteous;" and after more than eighteen centuries, the apostolic statement needs no qualification--"It is through much tribulation that we must enter into the kingdom of heaven." The thwarted scheme; the blighted hope; the ill-requited love; the frequent betrayal of confidence; the falseness or fickleness of trusted friendship; the cross of shame laid by another's hand upon the shoulder; the deep anxiety about the future, which robs the present of more than half its joys; the sudden failure of health, withering the bloom of youth, or bringing down the strength of stalwart manhood; the moral defection of one long loved and cherished, involving the irretrievable ruin of a character as dear to you as your own; the death-couch where, day by day and night by night, the mother fans the flickering spark of life in her darling child; the dear mounds in the cemetery, where affection fondly strews her memorial blossoms, and keeps them fresh and fragrant with her tears; many a secret grief, too sacred for the stranger to meddle with, and too tender to be breathed into the ear of the most familiar friend; and more than all, Christ's virgin bride weeping in sackcloth and ashes--a broken-hearted captive that cannot sing the Lord's song in the land of the idolater and the oppressor;--these are some of the fiery trials and manifold temptations by which a gracious Providence is disciplining us for our better destiny. But the ordeal is as varied as the shades of character and the aspects of human life. Now we have fears within; anon we have fightings without; then deep calleth unto deep at the noise of God's water-spouts, and all his waves and billows are gone over us. But the Lord rideth in the tempest and sitteth upon the flood; saying to the fiery steeds of the one and the angry waters of the other--"Hitherto, but no farther!" No chance is here; all is beneficent design and transcendent wisdom, restricting and controlling the agencies of our providential discipline as our spiritual interests may require. "Now," not always--"for a season," not forever--"if need be," not without the ascertained--are the Lord's beloved subjected to these terrible ordeals. The probation must precede the award. The shock of battle comes before the victor's triumph. Be not disheartened, but hold fast to your hope. The tide that is gone out will soon return. The revolving wheel that has brought you so low will soon lift you on high. But there is no rose without its thorn, nor dayspring unheralded by the darkness. Our light afflictions are but for a moment. Like summer showers they come and go, leaving the heaven brighter and the earth more beautiful. Many a sore chastening, over which we have wept with a sorrow almost inconsolable, has proved one of the greatest blessings