Again, call to remembrance your _social_ mercies, which have come more indirectly through others. Think of the relations and friends who have been spared to you! Begin with your dearest, and pass on from those to others less closely allied, but still most valued, and number them all, _if you can_. Do any remain whom death threatened to remove during the past year? Have any, have many, been a comfort to you? Have your anxieties regarding the temporal or spiritual well-being of others been lessened? Have beloved ones been given to you during the year--such as a wife, a husband, or a child? If God hath led you in this way during the past year, it ought indeed to be remembered! And if any of those Christian friends have fallen asleep in Jesus, then it is a great mercy to know most certainly that they are your friends still, and your _best_ friends too; and you should thank God for the happiness which they now enjoy, and which you hope to share with them. But you have other mercies to remember besides these. Surely much has been done for your spiritual good by your Father in heaven. He has shewn patience, forbearance, and long-suffering towards you; and has been teaching you during these past months by faithful ministers or faithful friends; and has been striving within you to bring you to Himself, and to keep you there. Have you enjoyed no peace in believing, nor gained any victories over self and sin? Have you possessed no more calm and habitual fellowship with God? Have you done no good? Has prayer neither been offered in truth, nor answered in love? Has all been fruitless and dead? Oh, let us beware of the falsehood of denying spiritual mercies bestowed on us by God! "If I should say I know Him _not_, I should be a liar like unto you," said our Lord. The graces of the Spirit, the least of them, are the earnests of eternal good, the assurances of enjoying the whole fulness of God. BUT YOU HAVE SORROWS TO REMEMBER. Alas! we are in little danger of forgetting these. The sunny days may come and go unheeded, but the dark ones are all registered. We cannot forget that "the Lord taketh away;" but why do we not as vividly remember that the same Lord "_giveth_" and that in both cases we have equal cause, did we only see it, to exclaim, "Blessed be the name of the Lord!" I ask not what these sorrows have been. Enough that they are very real to you, or to those who are bound up with you in the bundle of life. It was a weary time to you in the wilderness, and it is well to remember that portion of the way in which you have been led, which was as a dark valley and shadow of death.